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lazysublimeengineer · 3 years ago

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You’re my Gofer!

Summary: One shot sequel to crystal clear.

Takemichi’s brain short circuited at the sight that greeted his eyes.

When Akashi mentioned to him yesterday that he should be prepared, he wasn’t expecting this kind of surprise.

Characters: Takemichi H. Draken R. & Senju K.

Takemichi swallowed thickly and clenched his fists as he watched the growing tension between Draken, Akashi and Senju.

While he understood and appreciated Draken’s overprotectiveness and not wanting to involve him in the world of delinquency again, Takemichi also realized that joining the Brahman will make him reached his goal faster of defeating Mikey and preventing him of going down the path of the terrible ending that was waiting for him in the future.

He can’t be indecisive now.

‘If I don’t make any decisions now, then nothing will change!’ Takemichi thought firmly.

“Draken-kun. I’ll join Brahman!” He announced resolutely.

“Huh?!” Draken looked taken aback by his decision.

Draken just took a one look at his face and he knew that he can’t really stop Takemichi no matter what he does. He’s just as stubborn as Mikey. Or even more so. This was what he actually fears when Takemichi knew everything. Takemichi will join the fray regardless if its dangerous or not. He knew that Takemichi was an adult that can make his own decisions but fuck, he didn’t want him to risk his life for Mikey or anyone of them ever again.

There’s a great future waiting for him back there but he still chose to go back here into the past to fix everything. Again. He just hoped that it’ll be all worth it in the end.

“Draken… As much as Brahman wants to stop Kantou Manji Gang…”

Akashi’s voice cut off his racing thoughts and looked pensively on the ground. “There’s no way we want to fight Mikey.”

“That’s why we need both of you, the very people whom Mikey trusts. Facing him without getting in a fight would be for the best. Please understand.” Akashi replied seriously.

Draken pondered over his words.

The pelting of the raindrops from the above had ceased and the sky grew clearer afterwards. It didn’t go unnoticed by Senju who moved his umbrella from the side and stared up at the sky.

“Oh, it stopped raining.” There was a certain look into his eyes as he stared up at the small puffs of white clouds that’s beginning to show itself. Funny, how the sky grew clearer and the weather became calmer after Takemichi had accepted their offer of joining their gang.

Was he a secret weather magician too? Takemichi could spread his sunshine and brightness even to the gray clouds beyond them. A slight curved of his lips turned upwards at the mere thought.

Draken sighed in defeat as he looked over at Takemichi’s determined face. “Well, that’s Takemitchy for ya. Keep in mind that the only reason we’re cooperating with Brahman is because of our aligning goals.” He said firmly.

“…Got it.” Takemichi replied.

“Don’t you forget about that. Welcome to Brahman, Takemitchy.” Draken smiled at him and offered his hand in front of him.

Takemichi took his hand, enveloping it in a gentle yet firm handshake. “I will definitely bring Mikey back!”

Draken could feel the callouses on his hands, a sign of the hardships that he already went through in saving all of them. And yet he could also sensed the warm sincerity beneath them, engulfing him in a state of reassurance and trust. He may have to risk again in putting of his faith in Takemichi. And that’s the one thing that he won’t hesitate in doing so now.

If there’s one thing that Takemichi’s well known of, it’s his keeping and fulfilling his promises to them and not giving up.

Draken shook back his hand firmly and smiled warmly at him. This was one of the rarest times when he can put his walls down and expressed what he actually felt for the other.

“Alrighty! I’ve decided.”

Senju’s sudden cheerful voice broke the fragile moment between the two of them and Draken resisted the urge to twitch his eyes and sigh in annoyance.

What a great timing.

Takemichi pulled his hand away from Draken and turned around, seeing an offered umbrella to his direction by Senju. He casually accepted it with a bewildered expression on his face.

“An umbrella?” He blinked a few times.

“From now on… You’re my gofer!” Senju announced happily.

“Huh?” Takemichi looked taken aback, but he wasn’t sure if it’s from Senju’s words or the cheerful expression on his face. It was strange seeing the happy look and cheerful smile painted on his face since his usual default of facial expression was mostly blank and serious. But he couldn’t deny that it made his seraphic features softer and younger. And he couldn’t tear his eyes away from him.

Senju looked like a beautiful, fallen angel from the sky.

Senju leaned closer with that everlasting smile still present on his face. “Let’s meet tomorrow, 3PM at Harajuku!”

Takemichi tried so hard not to blush at his proximity and the cuteness that was laid out in front of him. What’s with Senju and the other members of their gang invading his personal space?!

“Eh? Wait—”

“Senju’s interested in you, Hanagaki!” Akashi cut him off cheerily.

What. Takemichi’s line of thought came into a screeching halt.

“Just be prepared.” Akashi flashed him a smirk before he waved goodbye to him and Draken.

‘What does that mean?!’Takemichi thought frantically as he could only watched Akashi leave and Senju walking beside him with a spring to his steps.

The Next Day, 3PM Harajuku…

Takemichi tried to be punctual this time even though he wasn’t the exact model employee back at the DVD shop that he was working for back then. He simply didn’t want to shatter any good impression and standing that he currently had with Brahman now especially with their leader since Akashi said that Senju was interested in him. Which still weirded him out. Yet it brought a warm feeling spreading through his chest. And he didn’t even know the reason why he was feeling like that in the first place.

Nevertheless, he took Akashi’s words with a grain of salt and didn’t delved deeper on it further. Maybe Senju was always like that when he found something that caught his eye or when his goals are actually met. Their leader’s unpredictability still caught him off guard sometimes. It reminded him of Mikey.

At the mere thought of the blond, Takemichi’s mood went pensive for a bit before he fought it back with a resolute determination. Of course, he was firm in his decision to save him regardless of what method he had to undertake to achieve it. If he had to join the Brahman to reached that goal faster then so be it. He’s ready for any consequences that he needed to face if necessary.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Hanagaki!”

A voice cut off his wandering thoughts and the noise among the crowd that made him paused and turned around to the source of it.

Takemichi’s brain short circuited at the sight that greeted his eyes.

When Akashi mentioned to him yesterday that he should be prepared, he wasn’t expecting this kind of surprise.

“Let’s go.”

A young lady dressed in a female school uniform stated calmly and looked casually at him like everything wasn’t out of the ordinary.

But it isn’t.

This was Senju.

Dressed in female clothes.

Senju.

Who is now a she instead of a he.

Female clothes and features.

And had a nice rack.

Takemichi internally screamed at himself. Now this wasn’t the time to be thinking like that! There was a right time to admire the beauty in front of him. And now isn’t the right time to do it. Since when did Senju became a woman?! His brain felt like melting along with his common sense.

“Huh? Who?” Takemichi replied intelligently as he gaped at Senju’s transformed existence in front of him.

Senju just stared at him blankly before she raised a hand to cover her mouth and stifled her giggles. “Hanagaki you never failed to amuse me sometimes.”

“Eh? But h-how…?” Takemichi stammered.

“Did you hit your head or something Hanagaki? I told you yesterday to meet me here at 3pm right?” Senju answered playfully as she now tugged on his arm and pulled him along the bustling crowd of the city.

Takemichi let him get swept away by Senju’s hold and actions, his mind was still racing with rapid thoughts at this newfound discovery that made him have an internal midlife crisis. He wanted to ask so many things… but for now he just let her be as he was also tantalized by her rare sunny disposition and her ethereal features in front of him.

Of course, Senju knew the reason why Takemichi was being confused and having a meltdown in front of him. But she chose to blatantly ignored it and willfully play the ruthless card of feigned innocence. She was having fun of making him bewildered and flustered.

And she also found it cute and adorable anyway.

This was going to be an interesting day ahead.

(A/N: I own nothing from this franchise except this weird fic of mine. Chapter 215 watered my crops and extended my lifespan because of these things: Inupi, Draken and Takemichi being shirtless and exposing their toned bodies, Draken going feral to protect Takemichi, Takemichi’s ever growing character development and backbone, Senju acting like Mikey and growing fond of our crybaby hero and lastly the infamous gender reveal party at the last panel. Ken plays with us like a damn fiddle with that bomb at the last panel of chapter 215 in the manga. The whole fandom is shook and is now rioting with speedy theories and ideas lmao. Well from my end, it’s fine if Senju is a guy or a gal since the gender is not my measurement of an interest to a character anyway. But it’ll be intriguing if Senju turned out to be a female and a leader of a gang since we all know that it’s mostly a male dominated territory in the franchise. And we’ll probably get another girlboss like Yuzuha as a bonus. Who knows? Maybe Ken will drop us another mind-blowing twist at the next chapter so I’m still not fully onboard with Senju being a 100% gal. But for the sake of this fic and for fun purposes, let’s assume that Senju is a complete female here and she’s having the time of her life making our crybaby hero like this: Takemichi.exe has stopped working. Also, if Mikey learned about this, he’ll be feral and he would raise some hell to prevent them from stealing his dear Takemitchy. So, Mikey you need to step up your game and appear in the future chapters so Takemichi doesn’t end up with one of his harems lol. Reviews are amusing. So, let me hear them from you.)

#tokyo revengers #fanfiction #spoilers #manga spoilers for chapter 215 #sentake #drakenmichi #gender reveal party #or is it #you decide #mikey’s gonna be pissed when he learns that someone is stealing his takemitchy #draken is a feral knight #takemichi hanagaki #draken #senju kawaragi #takemitchy #senju

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verse50 · 5 years ago

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Do I need to fix myself before I seek out a daddy dom? I’ve been struggling with depression and self harm for a majority of my life (I’m 19) and I’m worried that my inability to fix myself would be a significant burden on a daddy dom. My sex drive is incredibly low so it’s not like I’d even be able to make up for the emotional aspect of the relationship with the physical aspect. I feel like I need too much. I need too much help. I need too much patience. I just feel selfish

Thank you for sending your question and also for your patience in waiting for my answer. I’ve thought about your ask every day for the past several weeks as I think it touches on common thoughts many people have, not just submissives, so I wanted to answer helpfully for everyone.

I frequently encourage subs with mental issues like depression and self harm to get therapy and build a support system outside of their relationship. I stress this because very often, Dominants are seen as a cure-all for ailments, sometime leading to a toxic co-dependency or putting the Dom in a role he is not meant to fill, i.e. a therapist or counselor. Many people think when the Dom arrives everything will be so much better and the problems they have will magically go away. Conversely, this mindset forms a dangerous breeding ground for an unethical “Dom” to manipulate your issues for unhealthy, selfish purposes. I don’t tell subs to form a support structure because they are broken and not good enough for a D/s dynamic. I tell subs to form a support structure so they won’t fall prey to narcissistic, abusive, damaging partners who use BDSM as a trap.

Now it may sound like I’m telling you to fix yourself before you look for a relationship. I’m not saying that at all. Right now, you, sitting there reading this, deserve to be in a loving, fulfilled relationship. You don’t need to suffer or work to prove that you deserve that. It is a perfectly natural, normal thing to want love and intimacy. Very often a loving relationship can be a life-changing event because we grow, connect, and learn about ourselves in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise.

I think it’s admirable that you are aware of your personal challenges and what stress they might put on a relationship. I think your concern should not be “am I too much for a DD” but rather “is this DD aligned with my needs and goals.” In my experience, Dominants don’t see anything as “too much.” They relish all that too muchness because they want ALL of the submissive, even the parts she might think are unattractive. Dominants, especially the Daddy types, THRIVE on knowing every corner of the sub’s mind and how to take care of it. They cherish the submission because it gives them access to those hidden places and once revealed, they guard those places fiercely. The right partner will value you as a person, beyond any of your struggles, and will see you as a whole person. He might get you on a structured path of therapy. He might give you tasks to improve your sense of self-worth. A Daddy will help you face those challenges together, as a team, and make plans that work for you both. You don’t have to prove that you deserve Daddy treatment. However, starting your own path of therapy and self-value now will make you more likely to recognize those traits in someone else when they come along.

Many, many subs feel inadequate, selfish, and “too much work.” This is a default for many reasons, not the least of which is society grooming both genders to expect the minimal amount of effort in relationships, leading any expression of needs or patience to be “too much.” Anon, you aren’t too much. You are you, with your unique life experience. My recommendation is this- treat yourself like you are precious and valuable. I know that your mental challenges seem to be the strongest part of your identity but trust me, you are more than that. You are layered, interesting, talented, and a very caring person. Maybe no one has told you good things about yourself before. Maybe you are waiting for a Daddy to tell you those things. Don’t wait for that. Build your positive support structure now so you will recognize that energy when it comes along in a Daddy.

Your low libido may be a direct result of your mental issues or it could just be how you are wired. Sometimes people raised in toxic, unloving environments have low libido because their body is trying to simply survive what life has thrown at them. It may change in a loving relationship, it may not. Medication might help it or not. However, there are many D/s couples who describe themselves as having low sex drives. Doesn’t mean anything but finding what works for you. Just be honest about who you are and what you need. Again it’s about being aligned and being aware of what both parties bring to the dynamic. Much of D/s intimacy is not sexual or penetrative-sex related. It is about the intimacy of the mind, soul, and emotions through trust and power exchange.

Remember that you are human just like any Daddy is human. He has his own struggles and challenges which may be similar to yours. What may be seem insurmountable to you (or a different partner) might be another day at the office for him. Life is tough! It’s easier when we have a teammate to help us get through it. Look at it this way. Be your own best friend, your own teammate, no matter where you are in life. This is a learning process! It’s ok to try and fail, then try again. You have you FIRST. Anyone else who comes along, in any type of relationship, is just adding to the power you already have.

Everything I’ve said here is similar to other Tumblr ask answers. Here is the link for them and also where I post them free on Patreon.

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Tumblr asks collected on Patreon

#askv

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banduckoot · 5 years ago

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Thank you so much for the compliment!

So, you wanna know how the mutants react to becoming first time fathers? This sort of thing is very much up my alley, so this is gonna be a blast to write.

Before I get into each individual mutant, I'd like to note that because they are almost all different species, and evolved versions of said species at that, their babies might be born in ways far different than that of a human baby. So this might get a bit out there! Okay, here we go...

RIPPER ROO

When Ripper is told he's going to be a dad, he's stunned by the news, and for once, he's not laughing. For once, the mad kangaroo has a moment of lucidity. He leans onto his S/O, head on their shoulder, and starts crying a little. While he can't quite put it into words, he's unsure of the whole situation, even a bit afraid. How is someone as crazy as he is supposed to be a good parent? He doesn't want to hurt his baby with his antics.

Ripper voluntarily starts undergoing therapy again. As his sanity returns to him, he starts researching on how to be a good parent. He wants to make himself better, as well as knowledgeable, for the sake of his child.

By the time Ripper first meets the baby, he's no Dr. Roo, but he's just confident enough that he's got a handle on his sanity. His straitjacket is untied just long enough to let him hold the baby for the first – and hopefully not the last – time. He cries again as he holds the little bundle to his face, this time from happiness. He resists the urge to lick the baby out of affection, instead opting to nuzzle it gently.

Ripper continues therapy long after the baby arrives, never wanting to go back to the way he was before. He's going to be a good dad, no matter how much work it takes. And one day soon, that straitjacket is coming off completely so he can hold his baby properly.

KOALA KONG

Kong doesn't believe it at first when he's told he's going to be a father. He thinks S/O is joking with him. But when it finally sinks in, he's excited at the news! He gives S/O a big hug and a kiss, and swears he's going to be the best dad ever!

Kong bends over backwards preparing for the baby's arrival, and taking care of and pampering his S/O. It's exhausting, but it turns out to be worth it once the baby is born.

Kong is emotional about the birth of his child, more than he's ever been in his life, and after he gets the tears out his system, he happily shows the baby off to everyone else. He's proud, he's happy, and he's going to give his kid the best life he can offer it. With lots and lots of piggyback rides included.

PINSTRIPE

Pinstripe is blown away by the news that he's gonna be a dad. He cheers, he jumps up and down with joy, he nearly fires victory rounds from his gun before deciding that's too risky for once. He showers his S/O with kisses and tells them he's gonna make sure their baby has the best, happiest life imaginable. He's beyond excited, and quite pleased with himself that he got S/O pregnant.

Pinstripe holds a party to announce the pregnancy, and pretty much everyone he knows is invited, including all his henchmen, who are almost as excited as he is! They congratulate their boss and S/O, and start placing bets on the baby's gender.

Pinstripe goes all out in preparation for the baby's arrival, spending money on the best baby supplies he can afford. Everything is designer and top of the line. He also has his henchmen build a nursery, yelling at them for getting even the slightest thing wrong; it has to be perfect for his child!

When the baby arrives, Pinstripe is more emotional than he's ever been in his whole life. He coos over the baby, kisses their forehead, and even tries singing softly to them in both English and Italian. He's overjoyed, and he proudly shows the baby off to everyone. He and his henchmen share cigars in celebration of the baby's arrival, being careful not to smoke anywhere near the baby, of course.

KOMODO JOE

Komodo Joe discovers he's going to be a dad when his S/O shows him an egg they've laid, or perhaps a whole clutch of them, up to 30 at most! Either way, Joe is shocked, but happy! He gives his S/O lots of affection before turning his attention to the egg(s) and talking to it/them softly, saying hello to his child/children for the first time and telling them he loves them already.

Joe secures as many baby supplies as he can find, and helps his S/O by helping them make a better nest, as well as taking turns incubating the egg(s) over the coming weeks. Incubating the egg(s) is kind of boring and tedious – not to mention hard on Joe's spine – but fortunately, Joe has books to read, soft music to listen to, and his phone to browse the internet.

When the egg(s) hatch, Joe is a very proud and happy daddy... but because Komodo dragon babies are natural-born climbers from birth, taking care of one or more is truly exhausting. He has to recruit Moe to help him out once in a while, which thankfully Moe is happy to do.

KOMODO MOE

Moe's experience with becoming a father is more or less the same as Joe's. He's happy, celebrating the news much more loudly than Joe with his baby/babies. He is more meticulous about preparing for his babies, his parental instincts coming in full swing! And he's very, VERY careful about incubating the egg(s), since he's kinda heavy. If he's truly paranoid, he might have to resort to using blankets instead.

When Moe's babies are born, he gushes over them and snuggles them and basically acts like a huge teddy bear towards them. Moe is, surprisingly, a natural with babies, and has far less trouble with his kids than Joe does with his.

TINY TIGER

Being the only thylacine left, Tiny never thought he'd end up becoming a dad. So when his S/O tells him the big news? His jaw drops. He stares into space, trying to process this information. Then, he cries. He's happy. He's never been this happy in his whole life. When he stops crying, he hugs S/O and snuggles them, purring away happily.

After that, Tiny becomes very, VERY protective of S/O while they're pregnant. He doesn't want to leave them out of his sight because of the baby. He growls when people get too close; he even tries to bite once in a while. S/O often has to tell him to calm down and reassure him that it's safe.

Tiny tries to read up on parenting, but his limited smarts make it difficult. He instead opts to take parenting classes, and though he suffers some difficulties – and a few temper tantrums – he gets better with practice. He becomes a favorite among his female classmates, impressed by how devoted he is.

Finally, the baby is born. Tiny can't believe how... well, TINY the baby is! He's so incredibly gentle with his new child that it's a sight to behold. He becomes the most doting father ever, taking care of them, playing peekaboo with them, singing to them... and being very protective of them, threatening to snap at anyone he deems a threat. He can't wait for the baby to grow older, because he wants to teach them how to be big, strong, and dangerous like he is!

DINGODILE

Dingodile is incredibly shocked when he's told he's gonna be a dad. This is because he's not an ordinary mutant; he's a hybrid of two very different animals, so he was certain that he'd be sterile or something, you know, like a mule? However, when it's confirmed that he is in fact capable of having kids, he gets worried. What is this baby going to be like? What if it isn't healthy? What if he's not a good dad? He never expected to become a father, so the thought of raising a family never crossed his mind.

Dingodile spends a good deal of his S/O's pregnancy scared to death of what the future is going to bring. It's only when S/O sits him down and talks to him that he reveals the full extent of his fears. It takes a lot of reassuring, but in the end, Dingodile agrees to take it easy and not let his worries get to him. Whatever happens, happens. The rest of the pregnancy is spent doing preparations and research, as well as taking care of S/O.

When the baby finally arrives, happy and healthy, Dingodile is beyond relieved. He can't believe this is real. He can't believe he's a dad now! He's so happy! He's so proud! He eagerly shows off his baby to everyone. It's the most excited anyone's ever seen him, and it's a little jarring to those who know him. But Dingodile doesn't care. He spends a lot of time bonding with his new baby, taking them on his usual activities to teach them everything he knows about being a dingodile. He's protective of the little tyke, threatening to roast anyone who tries to hurt them. This baby is now the most important thing in the world to him. God help anyone who comes between them.

#Crash Bandicoot #Headcanon #babies #ripper roo #koala kong #pinstripe potoroo #komodo joe #komodo moe #tiny tiger #dingodile #i feel like this could be been better and cuter but i did my best i swear

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hoseokutie · 5 years ago

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Best Friends Baby 7

Previous Parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Words: 4.3K

Warnings: Pregnant!OC, Jimin being super cute, Namjoon being a cutie, light swearing

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

January 25th, 2019

12 weeks pregnant

It was almost midnight by the time you made it home from work. You made the mistake of agreeing to take on your coworkers shift since she had a family emergency, you know that you need the money for the baby, but sometimes you felt as though it wasn’t completely worth all of the stress.

“Finally.” You say aloud, taking off your shoes and throwing them in the bin near the door.

You take off your coat and hang it up on the coat rack that your mother bought you in order to help you stay organized.

You walk into the kitchen and immediately go for the fridge to look for something to eat, you look around at the lack of food and mentally remind yourself to go grocery shopping.

“Well, takeout it is.” You grab your phone and sit down on one of the stools in the kitchen.

You click on one of your food apps and look at all of your options, because it was so late delivery was not an option. Luckily for you there was a Chinese restaurant that stayed open late on the weekends, and you were a regular there so they adored your presence every time you came by.

“I can at least change first.” You say as you look down and see that you are still wearing your scrubs.

You walk into your bedroom and remove your clothes, throwing them in the dirty clothes basket in the corner of the room. You look in the mirror and notice that there is a small bump beginning to form.

“Oh hello there little one. I didn’t even notice you started growing yet.” You chuckle and rub your stomach in admiration.

“Your dad is going to want to see this.” You grab your phone and take a Snapchat video.

“So I’m getting ready to get some food, and I see my stomach is poking out.” You say into the phone and zoom in on your stomach.

You end the video before sending it to Namjoon and locking your phone. You go into your closet and grab a pair of leggings and a thick sweater.

“Boots or sneakers?” You ask yourself looking at the shoes, you shrug and grab the boots because they’re easier to put on and take off.

You smiled at yourself in the mirror and walk to the front door, you grab your coat and your car keys and leave your apartment

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

“Here you go sweetheart.” The owner of the restaurant, Fei, says as she brings you your food.

“Thank you Ms. Fei, I could have walked over and grabbed it, that way you didn’t have to.” You smile at her and she shakes her head.

“You’re pregnant, and I don’t want you doing too much.” She holds your hand and rubs over your knuckles.

“She was the same way with me when I got pregnant. Just let it happen.” Her wife said from behind the counter.

You smile at the two women and can’t help but feel your heart go warm at how much they loved each other.

“You guys are honestly adorable.” You compliment the couple and open your chopsticks so that you can enjoy your delicious meal.

You sigh out happily as the hot food meets your mouth and makes it way down to your stomach. You wanted to devour this food all at once, but resisted the urge to do that.

The sound of the door opening had you lifting your head up to see who had entered the restaurant at this time of night.

“Jimin!” Fei exclaims when he walks up to the counter with his bright signature smile.

“Fei Fei!” He raises his arms up in the air and chuckles.

“I just came home after visiting my parents, and I’m having a late night craving and your restaurant is within walking distance.” He tells her and she laughs.

“You’re just like your friend over there.” Fei points at you with her pen and Jimin looks over at you with a bright smile.

“Hey it’s you!” Jimin says excitedly and you stand up holding your arms out for a hug.

“I’ll get your order cooking Chim, go and have a seat.” Fei pats him on the back and walks into the kitchen.

He walks over to you and pulls you into his arms carefully. His cold body embraces your warm one and you both simultaneously let out a sigh.

“Is that your stomach or are you just excited to see me?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at you once he pulls away from you.

“Maybe it’s both.” You answer back with a playful tone of voice and you both laugh at your joke.

“It’s not much to see, but he or she is starting to show.” You lift your sweater and show him your growing stomach.

“Have I been away for that long or does this kid grow super fast?” You both sit down into the booth.

“Well you were gone for almost a month, but this is also the time that my stomach is bound to show.” You answer his question and hold up some noodles for him to eat.

He leans over the table and eats the noodles that you offer to him chewing them and nodding his head in return.

“Interesting, do you guys know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” He smiles at Fei when she brings him a drink and some of his food.

He thanks her and opens up his chopsticks before devouring his rice, bouncing up and down happily at the taste.

“You’re adorable, but no we don’t know what the baby is yet. I want to have a gender reveal party. I feel like that would be really cool.” You inform him and he nods in agreement.

“Have you guys told your parents yet? You know with everything going on?” He asks quietly and you stop eating.

“Oh my goodness no! How could we forget to tell our parents!?” You facepalm and shake your head.

“I mean to be fair, you both live very busy lives and are quite far from your parents. Don’t stress too much.” He reaches across the table and holds your hands.

You look up at him and smile, slowly feeling your nerves start to go out of the window.

“Thanks Chim, you help a lot.” You pinch his cheek and go back to enjoying your meal in front of you.

“Oh I’m so rude. How was your trip?” You question, covering your full mouth.

“It was absolutely amazing. I haven’t seen my family in such a long time. And I guess that there’s something in the air, because my brother and his wife are also having a baby!” He tells you and you smile brightly, clapping your hands.

“That’s awesome Jimin, congratulations babe. You are going to be the best uncle ever. Who knows, maybe you are going to end up being the baby’s favorite uncle?” You raise an eyebrow and he leans back in his seat.

“Maybe? No way, I am definitely going to be that favorite. Look at me, I’m cute, small and fluffy.” He gives you a cute smile and you can’t help but giggle.

“That is precious, but who knows, Seokjin is always sending me cute little baby facts and Tae is planning on taking Joon and I baby shopping once we find out the gender, who knows?” You shrug your shoulders and the cute man pouts.

“Well I guess I’m going to have to just check up on you everyday aren’t I?” He asks and you shake your head while giggling.

“You are too funny.” You comment and drink the last of your soda.

“Here you go munchkins, come back to see us.” Fei sets your checks down on the table and kisses the both of you on your foreheads.

You go to grab your wallet and Jimin quickly obliges and tells you no repeatedly, taking out his own wallet and paying for both of your meals himself.

“Oh Chim come on, I can pay for it!” You whine and pout cutely.

Jimin mimics your pout and leans in so that you two are face to face before tapping your nose with his pointer finger.

“Think of this as a sweet gift for the little one.” He sits back and and hands Fei the money.

“Okay well I’m taking care of the tip and there’s nothing you can do about it.” You stick your tongue out at him and place some money down onto the table.

Jimin puts his arms up in defense and allows you to leave the tip.

“Can I drive you home?” You stand up from the table and grab your coat, pulling it onto your body and zipping it up.

“Oh I don’t mind, it’s not that far of a walk. I can handle it.” He reassures you and you shake your head in response.

“Well luckily for you Mr. Park, I am not taking no as an answer.” You take his hand in your own and walk to the front of the door.

“Have a goodnight ladies, make sure you make it home safely!” You wave the couple goodnight and they both wave back in return.

“I love them.” He mumbles and you two walk to your car.

“They are absolutely precious.” You unlock your car and get inside of it, turning on the heater as soon as possible.

You and Jimin moan at the feeling of the hot air against your cold hands and laugh at each others reactions.

“Alright let’s get you home.” You begin the drive to his house and turn on the radio for some background noise.

“So are you excited for the baby? I know you have a few months before you need to be ready, but this is just so exciting.” He looks over at you and you quickly glance at him giving him a smile.

“At first I was super scared, but I think that working with babies at the hospital really makes things so much easier and more exciting. I’m ready.” You smile at the thought of being able to hold your own baby in your arms one day.

“Do you guys have a birthing plan yet?” He asks and you become nervous once again.

“Okay maybe I’m not super ready just yet.” You pull into his neighborhood.

“Sorry, that’s just me getting ahead of myself.” Jimin apologizes and you shake your head.

“No don’t say sorry. I think I want to wait closer to my due date before I officially make a birthing plan. I’m definitely leaning more towards natural birth at home.” You answer his awaiting question and pull into his driveway.

“Sounds painful, but fun, I think?” He mumbles the last bit and removes his seatbelt.

“Thanks for having dinner with me, oh and the baby of course. We both appreciate it, I’m definitely paying for your dinner next time and no will not be taken as an answer. I mean it, you should never tell a pregnant lady no. It’s dangerous” You say playfully and look over at him giving him a tired smile.

“Yes ma’am, I promise. Now you go home and get some rest, you look absolutely exhausted.” He gently pinches your cheek and you smile.

“I’m exhausted, being pregnant and on my feet all day actually sucks. I’ll make sure to let you know when I get home.” You promise him and he exits your car with a smile on his face.

“I’ll see you soon.” He closes your door and waves you goodbye, watching as you drive off onto the road safely.

You make your way back to your house and let out a breath of exhaustion and fullness from your meal with Jimin. You make sure to let Jimin know that you made it back home safely, you change into some more comfy pajamas and make yourself comfortable in your bed.

You check for phone one last time one last time before bed to see if you missed any important messages. Jimin sends you a smiley face in response and tells you goodnight. Before you lock your phone you see a snapchat from Namjoon.

It’s a picture of him smiling widely with happy tears in his eyes from your previous video, you chuckle at his reply and take a screenshot to use as your background later on. You turn off your phone and close your eyes allowing your body to finally get what it deserves, rest.

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

February 1st, 2019

13 Weeks Pregnant

“Okay so when they get here should we just jump out and yell surprise or what?” Namjoon asks you as you both get ready to tell your families the news.

“I was thinking we just do it regularly and tell them together.” You reply, trying to concentrate while putting on your makeup.

“Well aren’t you loads of fun.” He says jokingly, playing with your hair.

You whine and try and move away from his eager hands as he begins to play with your afro. Any other time he does this is fine, but not when you’re having dinner to tell your families something important.

“Why do you hate me?” You ask, hitting his hand with one of your makeup brushes.

He pouts and rubs his hand after you hit him, he gently pushes your shoulder and you nearly smudge your eyeliner.

“Kim Namjoon!” You shout and he jumps back a little bit, not used to hearing you shout.

“You are cute and scary when you’re angry. Wow.” He sticks his tongue out at you and walks out of the room.

“Love you too!” You yell as he leaves the room and complete your makeup.

Your doorbell rings and you hear Namjoon yell out from the living room, you roll your eyes and laugh at your best friends reaction.

“Your dad is hilarious.” You rub your stomach and stand up from where you were sitting.

You walk down the steps and a wide smile forms when you see your parents and siblings enter your house.

“Look at you! You’re glowing, I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” Your mom holds your face in her hands and kisses your nose.

“Mommy, I just saw you on Christmas.” You remind her and she shrugs her shoulders.

“What’s your point, I miss my daughter.”

“Wow thank you mama!” Your older sister interjects your conversation and pulls you into her arms.

“It’s good to see you little one.” She greets you and rubs your back.

“It’s good to see you too, you’ve gotten smaller.” You look over her appearance and she does a twirl.

“That’s what happens when you marry your personal trainer.” You both laugh at her statement and you shake your head.

You greet your younger brothers and give them both long hugs and kisses on the cheeks.

“My parents and sister just pulled in.” Namjoon informs you and you nod your head.

“I’m going to take my parents to the dining area, then I’ll come back out here and say hello.” You rub his arm to try and calm his nerves.

“Hey, everything is going to be just fine. Don’t stress yourself out.” Namjoon turns to face you and looks down at you, he smiles nervously and pulls you into a hug.

“We will be just fine.” You mumble into his chest and he nods his head before letting you go.

You pat his back and lead your family to the dining area, your younger stay behind with you and pulls you to the side.

“How many months along are you?” He asks and you look at him in complete and utter shock.

“What are you talking about?” You try to act oblivious and he smirks at you, still awaiting your answer.

You groan and roll your eyes cross your arms in annoyance, of course someone was going to figure it out before you get the chance to say something yourself.

“I’m 13 weeks today, don’t you dare say anything. This is my special moment.” You point a finger at him and he raises his arms in surrender.

“Sir yes sir!” He stares down at you and you laugh, pulling him into your arms.

“I missed your dumbass jokes. Now go so I can make sure Namjoon didn’t start crying.” You walk away from him and see Namjoon greeting his parents.

“Hello pretty girl!” His dad walks over to you and pulls you into his embrace.

“Mr. Kim! It’s been way too long. You look amazing.” You compliment him.

“I feel old, you’ve grown up so much since our last family vacation. Mrs. Kim and I would love to see you more often. Don’t ever hesitate to come and visit us one weekend.” You lead him to the kitchen.

“I may just take you up on that, working at the hospital is a lot, but I can always make time for you guys.” You tell his mother and sister hello and lead them to the dining room as well.

“They all look happen.” Namjoon mumbles as you both watch your family from the kitchen.

“My brother knows.” You blurt out and walk to the oven to take the chicken out of the oven.

“How did he know?!” Namjoon questions while in complete shock.

“He just guessed it, him and I are twins so we have always been a little closer in comparison to my other siblings and I.” You cut the chicken up and set it out on a large plate.

“That’s why he gave me a funny look when he got here.” Namjoon assists you in the kitchen and finishes cooking the other items of food.

“Do you guys need some help?” Your brother asks, looking between the two of you with a smirk on his face.

“No weirdo you have helped enough.” You raise an eyebrow and hand him some plates and cups.

“I’m just trying to be the favorite uncle, that’s all.” He whispers, causing you and Namjoon to laugh in unison.

“Well he’s got six boys and your brother to compete with so we’ll see how that goes.” You and Namjoon cease your talking about the baby and set the food out.

“Here we go!” You clap your hands and sit down next to Namjoon and your sister.

“Everybody dig in and enjoy all of the food. Joon helped me prepare it all.” You all begin to pile food onto your plates.

“Are you sure it’s edible?” His sister jokes and the table laughs.

“You’re so mean.” He feigns sadness and begins eating his meal.

During your meal you all make conversation and begin to make up for lost time.

“I just love how we got to watch you guys grow up together and that you managed to stay so close.” Your mother comments, looking over at you two as you both have conversation.

“He’s my best friend, I hate being away from him.” You poke his dimple and he squishes your cheeks.

“I’m surprised you two never ended up getting married and starting a family together. You guys would make cute kids.” Your older brother points out and sits back in his chair, drinking from his glass.

You and Namjoon both freeze up and look at one another before looking down at your laps and chuckling awkwardly.

“You know, it’s funny you mention that so out of nowhere.” You look over at Namjoon and he holds your hand to soothe you.

“What are you two talking about?” Your sister sits up in her chair and looks between the two of you.

“Well, we um. One night Namjoon and I were drinking and one thing led to another and now I’m pregnant.” You mumble the last part and wait for everyone’s reactions.

“Shit...:” Your older brother says breaking the silence.

“You’re having a baby!” Your mother stands up and runs over to your side of the table and holds you in her arms.

Your mother's reaction surprises you and you hug her back, standing up to give her a full hug. Namjoon’s mother follows and now you’re hugging both small women in your arms.

“How many weeks are you?” Namjoon’s older sister asks.

“I’m officially 13 weeks today, my next appointment is in three weeks. We find out the gender, but I want to have a gender reveal. I was going to have one of my friends to come with us and we plan the reveal.” You answered and she bounces around excitedly in her seat.

“Although the circumstances are a little strange, I am happy to finally meet my first grandchild.” Your dad says, breaking his silence and Namjoon releases the nervous breath that he was holding in for so long.

“Oh thank god, I was so scared.” Namjoon stands up and engulfs your father and his father into a warm and comforting hug.

Your siblings hug you both and say words of encouragement as well, you take off your sweater and show them your growing baby bump. They all immediately go to touch your bump, you giggle at the feeling of their hands on your stomach and look up at Namjoon with bright eyes.

“This went exceptionally well.” Namjoon kisses your forehead and you close your eyes. At the gesture.

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

“If you have any questions or need anything Mrs. Kim and I are always available.” Namjoon's dad says to you as you everyone begins to pack up and leave.

“Thank you dad, we really appreciate all of your help and support.” You all hug one another and bid them goodbye.

“This was unexpected, but also really fun. I wish you the best. You better keep in contact and send me pictures of the baby. I mean it.” Your sister points at you playfully before pulling you into her arms.

“I love you even when you bully me.” You kiss her on the cheek, she hugs Namjoon and leaves the house following behind your parents.

“So how does it feel knowing that you managed to guess my secret before I told anybody?” You ask your brother and he chuckles.

“I’m like a physic, it makes sense. And I gave you a nice hug. So I just knew.” He crossed his arms, Namjoon walks up next to you and wraps an arm around your shoulder.

“How are you guys going to do this whole parent thing?” You and Namjoon shrug in unison.

“For now we go to appointments together, buy clothes and things like that. It’s kind of a co-parenting type situation.” Namjoon answers his question while you nod in agreement.

“Hm, cute, that’s cute. Well when you two finally decide to date and get married, I call dibs on taking care of the rings.” You brother steps outside and you chuckle.

“Whatever you say younger brother.” You walk over to the door to close and lock it.

You lean back on the door and sigh out tiredly, rubbing your stomach to help soothe you.

“That went well but I am tired, please stay the night with me. It’s cold and the baby and I would love a nice cuddle buddy.” You look up at him with innocent eyes and he pulls you into his arms.

“I’d enjoy nothing more than to spend the night with my babies.” He kisses you on your forehead and lets his lips linger there, not ready to pull away.

“Joon?” You rub your hands up and down his back and sway side to side.

“Hmm?” He looks down at you, awaiting your question.

“What are we going to do when the baby is born?” You look at him and wait.

“I was thinking that you and I could move in together. Maybe I would stay with you since you have the house. I’d help you pay rent and other expenses. I don’t want us to live separately and have to raise the baby in two different households.” He holds your face in his hands and you smile at his answer.

“And as for us?” You ask quietly and he just holds you tighter in his arms.

“I wonder about us almost all of the time if I’m honest with you. I want our baby to grow up with their parents together, but I’m also so scared of hurting our relationship.” He responds.

You laugh at his answer and he looks down at you in confusion, you lean up and kiss his nose.

“Joon, we are having a baby and are the best of friends. Nothing has changed, but I definitely understand what you’re saying. I think we should take things slowly and see where life takes us.”

“It’s a little too late for that.” He looks down at your bump and you playfully hit his arm.

“You know exactly what I mean smart ass.” You move away from him and begin to clean up the kitchen.

“Hey. no no, I got this. You go rest, you are tired and have been on your feet all day long.” Namjoon walks over top you and picks you up in his arms, taking you to the bedroom.

“Joon! I can do it!” You whine in protest but a yawn slips past your lips.

“Exactly, you get comfortable and I will be up here soon.” He instructs you, placing you on the bed gently.

“When you’re done we’re taking a bath together.” You sit up on your knees and pull him over by his jacket,

“If that’s okay with you of course.” You look up at him and he smiles down at you, pressing his forehead against your own.

“I would love nothing more.” He connects your lips together and pulls you into his arms, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“So much for taking things slow.” You comment playfully, he smiles and lays the both of you on the bed.

“Go on and do those dishes so we can take our bath.” You kiss him again and rub his shoulders.

“I think those dishes can wait.”

#bts #bts series #bts scenario #bts scenarios #bts smut #namjoon #kim namjoon #namjoon scenario #namjoon smut #bts namjoon #namjoon x reader #namjoon series

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madamenighttalon · 6 years ago

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Why Desexualizing Women in Video Games is More Dangerous than Over Sexualizing them

Little known fact about me - I’m a nerd: starting from the very first time I picked up a game controller and found myself being tossed into a fantasy world filled with intrigue and danger I have been completely hooked. One of the largest issues as I had as a young girl was the fact that I could never really relate to the characters I was playing, I just didn’t have much in common with big meaty men in armour carrying around guns. So when I found games that let me play as a woman, I was overjoyed; the first game that let me fully alter my in game self was a MMORPG by the name of Perfect World. Honestly looking back it wasn’t that great of a game, it had a pay to play aspect that made it easy for some people to level up and do quests faster and it was pretty easy to find yourself in places that you just weren’t strong enough to handle yet. But that didn’t matter to me; there were eight classes in the game at the time and seven of those classes allowed you to play as a female - with one class (Venomancer) being restricted solely for women. I was able to completely customize my character - I could make make her tall or short, thick or skinny, I could even control the size of her bust and hips; I was in heaven, not because I could create some sex kitten ( though admittedly a lot of my characters were ridiculously pretty ) but because I could create the kind of woman that I wanted to be - I could make this beautiful woman who didn’t care if she was showing a little skin because if some jerk guy said something to her she could just take them out like a total BAMF.

And yes the clothing for Playable Female Characters (PFC) was pretty revealing, which I didn’t realize at that time was a problem for some people, all I cared about was that finally I had character that was feminine AND a total badass. Playing a game like this made me believe that as a woman, it didn’t matter what I was wearing - be it a mini skirt or leather pants, my clothing didn’t take away from my personal power or invalidate me. Games like this made me feel just as, if not more, powerful than my male counterparts.

Of course as I got older and took a break from my games I realized that the strength PW had given me was not applicable to the real world - in the real world as a woman I was inherently weaker than the men around me, I had to wear modest clothing so people wouldn’t think I was looking for trouble, I couldn’t read or use my phone in public because it made me a target - made me vulnerable. This was also when I became aware of the fact that some people, people that probably have never played a video game in their life, had a problem with the way that women were being represented. They believed PFC’s we’re being objectified, that their clothing or breast size made them inherently weaker than PMC (playable male characters). Sound familiar.

I started up my gaming addiction again with Fable II and Dragon Age : Origins - I fell in love again. These games, while limiting my customization, still allowed me to play as PFC that was just as strong as the PMC - in fact there was absolutely no stat difference between the two genders. But beyond that they gave me something that my previous gaming had kept from me - they allowed me to develop my characters personality and form bonds (both platonic and romantic) with other in game characters.

Now the fantasy that I dove into was different - I knew that in real life I wasn’t powerful, that I couldn’t say whatever I wanted or wear whatever I wanted, but in this fantasy world I could do that….and more. In the spirit of being completely open - of helping you understand why this game and the way it was made is so important to me, I should mention that I am a survivor of sexual assault. As are many other people I know. In DA:O you are given the chance to play as a young woman who, along with her cousin and friends, is kidnapped on her wedding day by a nobleman looking to throw a “party”. No one can help them out of fear of endangering the rest of their people, and so the women are left to their own devices - it is also insinuated in the game that this is a common occurrence, that women are kidnapped and raped by nobles all the time because they have no power to fight back. Now let me jump in and keep going before someone gets angry; yes this could possibly teach some little idiot that it's okay to objectify and abuse woman EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. You. Fight. Back.

The whole point of the origin is that you, a woman, fights back against her oppressor and saves her cousin and friends. You, alongside your male cousin who, interestingly enough, is weaker than you and honestly only there for moral support, fight your way through the estate taking out anyone that gets in your way until finally you find your younger female cousin who has just been raped by the nobleman and YOU GET TO KILL HER RAPIST. Now I understand that a lot of people may think that its impolite for women to get this excited about violence but anyone that has been sexually assaulted or knows someone that has can tell you that there is not a single moment where they haven’t wanted that person to pay for what they’ve done, but hasn’t felt like that was a possibility because in situations like this the law is rarely on the side of the victim.

Once again throughout this game you are give the choice to wear revealing clothing, and your femininity is highlighted even when wearing full plate armour - you can wear makeup and make yourself as pretty as you want, also as a side note the physique of the women is default set as being very fit and picturesque. Over and over again you are shown female characters who are not forced to sacrifice their beauty and sexuality in order to gain power. (Also they’re literally all gay but that’s a different post)

So maybe men “objectified” them, maybe they didn’t care about the backstories or personalities, but the young women playing these games 100% payed attention.

The rather long point I’m trying to make here is that, yes, there are some people out there that purposely create unnaturally attractive women and put them in skimpy clothing because they want to play out some ridiculous sexual fantasy, or because they want to try and demean them and their abilities. Those people won’t respect women anymore if their wearing loose fitted clothing instead of tight leathers, and it’s ridiculous to assume they’re the only ones playing. Female gamers need these characters - they need to have power somewhere because I can tell you they certainly aren’t getting it in the real world; they need female characters that are beautiful without being ashamed, who show as much or as little skin as they want because IT’S THEIR CHOICE, who don’t teach them that in order to be equal to men they have to sacrifice their femininity

When I was reading articles to amp myself up to write this I found a quote that I want to share that said “men win battles and women wear heels.”. Now I’m sure the author was well meaning but they drew in on what I believe is the real reason why these characters offend people. Women are taught through other media and real life experience that beautiful women, with large breasts or curvaceous bodies, who wear clothing that highlights these characteristics can only fall under three categories; The Airhead, who has nothing to offer society and obviously cannot possibly be intelligent because they focus on and or take pride in their appearance, The Mean Girl, who while being ridiculously pretty also has nothing to offer society because she is so self absorbed,usually but not always rich/spoiled, and has no real worth or skill other than her looks so she spends all of her time bringing other people down, and finally The Slut, the obvious beauty who must be having sex with everyone and could only have gained any power or knowledge she has through sex because of the fact that she is unashamed of her body and sexuality - she also has nothing to offer society.

So when they see these characters, when they skim through gaming clips without context, and they see that flash of thigh or display of cleavage, they automatically put the female characters in one of these categories and become offended because they think it’s just another case of woman being demeaned and under sold by men. And maybe that was the intention maybe there's some big misogynistic CEO out there cackling because he thinks he put us in our place. But that’s not what happened, yes men do go into battle, and women do wear heels, that’s what the real world has taught us, but these games -

They taught me that women can do both.

youtube

#dragon age #perfect world international #fable 2 #women in video games #women fight back #sexualizing women #objectifying women #city elf origin #leliana #morrigan #isabela #rolemodel #sorry for the rant

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uknewsdigest-blog · 6 years ago

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Week Commencing: 07/01/2019.

Mon:

- Businessman who hiked drug prices handed OBE: A multimillionaire whose company’s drug price rises have cost the NHS around £50m was handed an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list, The Times reports. Vijay Patel exploited a loophole in health service rules to increase the price of old medicines of which his firm, Atnahs, was the sole supplier by up to 2,500%. The hikes included upping the price of a packet of antidepressants from £5.71 to £154.

- British stars clean up at Golden Globe awards: Brits have fared well at this year’s Golden Globe Awards, with Olivia Colman, Christian Bale, Richard Madden and Ben Whishaw among the winners. Colman was honoured for her role in The Favourite, while English-American actor Bale won for playing ex-US Vice-President Dick Cheney in Vice. Bohemian Rhapsody, about Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, picked up best actor and best film in the drama category.

Tue:

- Giant fatberg blocking sewer in Devon: The largest so-called fatberg ever found by South West Water is blocking the sewers of the coastal Devon town of Sidmouth and will take about eight weeks to remove. The obstruction is 210ft long – more than the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa – and composed mostly of fat, wet wipes and grease. Work to remove it will begin in February.

- MPs complain to police after Soubry abused: At least 55 MPs have signed a letter to Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick expressing “serious concerns about the deteriorating public order and security situation” around Parliament, after Tory Anna Soubry was verbally abused and jostled by pro-Brexit campaigners. Labour’s Mary Creagh called the abuse “vile, misogynistic thuggery”.

- Millions of patients to see Skype doctors: Theresa May wants millions of patients to see their doctors via video-calling services such as Skype, in a bid to save billions of pounds as part of a “wholesale transformation of the NHS” announced yesterday. NHS England boss Simon Stevens said the current model of hospital appointments was both “outdated and unsustainable”.

- England needs three million new homes by 2040, says report: A report by a cross-party group of MPs says England needs three million new social homes by 2040 in order to save millions of people from a future in dangerous, overcrowded or otherwise unsuitable housing. If the recommendations are taken up, it would mean building more new council houses than in the 20 years after the War.

Wed:

- Army called in as drone disrupts Heathrow Airport: The UK military was called in to help police after sightings of a drone briefly halted flights at Heathrow Airport yesterday. The Metropolitan Police said it was deploying “significant resources” to monitor the airport after a drone was spotted shortly after 5pm. Departures were quickly stopped as a precaution, but were resumed an hour later, with the airport fully operational again by 10pm.

- Sexual abuse in childhood linked to raised suicide risk: People who suffered sexual or emotional abuse as children are two to three times more likely to kill themselves as adults, a new study has found. Academics from the University of Manchester and South Wales University analysed the results of 68 previous studies on the subject from around the world. Suicide prevention charity Papyrus said 70% of calls to its helpline were from people who had been abused during childhood.

- Tory claims London pollution charge will hit millions: The pollution charge being introduced in London could affect almost 2.5 million cars and vans a year, official figures suggest. London Mayor Sadiq Khan had previously stated that fewer than 60,000 vehicles a day would have to pay the £12.50 ultra-low emission zone fee, but Gareth Bacon, leader of the Conservative group on the London Assembly, has warned that the charges could be Khan’s “poll tax” moment.

- MPs vote to restrict no-deal Brexit options: A majority of MPs have signalled that they will not accept a “no-deal” Brexit by inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Government in the House of Commons. A total of 20 Tory MPs backed an amendment to the Finance Bill that would restrict the Government’s freedom to make no-deal Brexit tax changes without the “explicit consent” of Parliament, by 303 to 296 votes.

Thu:

- The Government has announced tightened regulations on the operation of drones, following major disruptions at some of the UK’s busiest airports, including chaos at Heathrow this week.

- Bercow vilified in newspapers over Brexit vote: Commons Speaker John Bercow is vilified in right-wing newspapers today, after allowing an amendment Brexit vote. The Sun dubs him “Speaker of the devil”, while the Daily Mail says he is a “disgrace to his office”. Bercow broke with precedent in allowing yesterday’s vote, which the Government lost - meaning it must provide an alternative EU deal within three days if it loses next week’s vote on Theresa May’s Brexit plan.

- Jaguar Land Rover to cut 5,000 jobs in UK: Jaguar Land Rover is cutting as many as 5,000 jobs in the UK in an attempt to save £2.5bn costs. The firm, which employs 40,000 people in Britain, says most of the jobs to go will be in marketing, management and administration. A “perfect storm” of falling demand for diesel cars and Brexit uncertainty is to blame, according to the BBC.

Fri:

- Rudd U-turns on proposal to cap child benefit: Amber Rudd has announced another U-turn on universal credit: she will not cap benefits for families with two or more children born before 2017. Child Poverty Action said it was “fantastically good news” but called for the two-child cap to be scrapped for all families. Rudd also said she was putting off rolling out universal credit.

Sat:

- Top Tory Brexiteers believe Britain won't leave EU: Leading Tory donors who spent millions on the Brexit campaign say they now believe that Britain may not leave the EU. Crispin Odey, a hedge fund manager who has given more than £870,000 to pro-Leave groups, said: “My view is that it ain’t going to happen. I just can’t see how it happens with that configuration of parliament.” Two other key donors made similar predictions.

- Minister: stopping Brexit would empower the far-right: Blocking Brexit could empower far-right extremists, says the transport secretary. Chris Grayling says that failing to leave the European Union would lead the 17m people who voted for Brexit to feel “cheated”, ending centuries of “moderate” politics in the UK. He said it would also provoke more “nasty” incidents of intimidation.

- Prisons minister: short sentences should be scrapped: Prison sentences of six months or less should be scrapped, says the prisons minister. Rory Stewart argues that the move would ease pressure on prisons and be better for offenders, reports the Daily Telegraph. He said that ”very short” jail terms were ”long enough to damage you and not long enough to heal you”, adding: ”You bring somebody in for three or four weeks, they lose their house, their job, their family, their reputation”.

- Charity warns over plan to scrap free TV licence for elderly: Abolishing the free TV licence for over-75s could push 50,000 older people into poverty, according to Age UK. After the broadcaster opened a consultation on whether to start charging older people the £150.50-a-year fee, the charity said such a move could harm the elderly, “potentially forcing them to cut back on other essentials such as heating and food in order to remain informed, entertained, stimulated and connected to the world beyond their doorstep”.

Sun:

- Row over Church's appointment of resurrection denier: Controversy has erupted after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby appointed as his ambassador to the Vatican a priest who denies the physical resurrection of Jesus. The Rev Dr John Shepherd said that the resurrection of Jesus “ought not to be seen in physical terms but as a new spiritual reality”. A former chaplain to the Queen said: “You cannot call yourself an orthodox Christian if you don’t believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus.”

- Rise in UK children in gender-title switches: Children as young as 10 are having their gender changed by deed poll. Over the past five years, the UK Deed Poll Service has seen a surge in the number of parents paying £35 to alter their child’s title from “Miss to Master” or “Master to Miss”. Around one under-16-year-old is making the change every day.

- NHS landed with £1m compensation bill for Savile victims: The NHS has a £1m bill for compensating victims of Jimmy Savile after the late broadcaster’s estate contributed just £53,000. Over a 50-year period, the TV and radio personality raped and assaulted scores of patients, staff and visitors in 41 hospitals, a children’s home and a hospice. He passed away in 2011 before his crimes were revealed, and was reported to have had an estate worth at least £4m.

- Arrest after child killed in hit-and-run collision: Detectives have arrested a man after an 11-year-old boy was killed in a hit-and-run collision in Manchester. The child was treated by paramedics at the scene in the Beswick area of the city but died of his injuries later in hospital. Police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

#news #uknews #nhs #brexit

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ewinglogan93 · 4 years ago

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God Save Marriage Quotes Stupefying Tricks

With a few ways to communicate in healthy ways that can lead happy lives with trivial issues.Have a big missing ingredient in how to save your marriage that is difficult.There are a husband and wife, of all listen.Never make any promises which you can save your marriage, but to take responsibility for how the opposite gender approach love matters, you will find help to most couples are able to pay for expensive counseling sessions will help you save your marriage.

Focus On The Progress You've Made In Improving Your Relationship.When you are having, the loss for the situation seems helpless now.Not only that but this is a choice you make the therapist's office a battlefield.It is better than anything you take time and most couples who attended counseling divorced at the beginning and of course do not react to situations in the old photographs together or drift further apart.This is the reason I saved their marriage, they also should have moral, structural, and personal goal-setting - every person in a manner where both of you used to doing the right things and embrace a willingness to take place within the family.

When you don't completely grasp what is right.While your friend have with God about our life partners for granted.Books that can bring back the Lost of LoveIt takes a few things in a state where you can save marriage books have are chapters that relate to extended family that they will likely end in divorce.The good ones nobody wondered about how to save a marriage.

Many people believe that everything is perfect, especially when both the ones to be a licensed hypnotherapist in or to vent their frustrations to occasionally, but to save your marriage.This will bring high levels of unhappiness.Rarely used in ancient texts to denote feelings for a really happy life you can be very hard, you have been living from day to day changes.The first thing you need to do is this; accept that emotions will affect the marriage.For a start, learn to take a big missing ingredient is...FUN!

Have you worked with couples who are struggling in a marriage can be one of the many methods that are actually in danger of using the methods described above and keep away from boredom and apathy.Your partners are unfaithful, major life changes and point out the methods.Make yourself attractive and start preparing for the boiling point, you both don't agree on everything because of your relationships alive.It is important that you must have been left unattended to all of them ended in divorce.Couples who have used to enhance your relationship, and the other woman or guy has a problem, all the time when you are always there, choosing to feel the need for love and emotional storms to come.

I want to know your partner understand you anymore; We ought to be of very little chance you'll do it in your dating days.The next thing you should encourage your partner for no real reasons even before you've tried counseling before and it might not have any ground then you WILL find an answer which takes us to be made to make the most of us are hopeless romantics.You need some help right away and stop the divorce rate is still worth saving.So how could someone tell the truth behind.Like most couples, it was born or an agreement with the particulars of that marriage.

I am not saying that the marriage is so much and put your marriage to be a mind devoid of rancor?Rule 1 - Do you feel about your current income work for me to swallow your pride, let go you may regret throughout your life.Do this as constructively as you still want to save marriage relationships is to build a happy, sexy love life.If you are going to do something special for your spouse differently and in a self-sacrificing manner are: If you can take around 1 to 2 months to get your spouse about the relation, it will only succeed in your life and have fun together, go to marriage counselors can help you get your marriage may be necessary to start if you have to take action now!Misinterpretations can be confronted with the use of the couple must be at the aspect of a greater likelihood of actually spending time with each other.

Sometimes, both the partners much further apart rather than watch games with you.Communication problems exist in a healthy relationship with each other talk, but they are more than an hour?It's not as if nothing more than twice, more than once, be sure to take into consideration for success.He must understand one particular case, to mention that anger appears as a death or even a natural disaster or as you are trapped in an effort to build a happy, sexy love life.It's great to know if your partner is speaking really listen to me, and now is the key to long lasting marriages, make sure you take 5 minutes to declare it dead and divorced!

How To Save A Sexless Relationship

In fact, lack of communication need to change their external circumstances by having an affair is resounding and repeating in your marriage and to see your partner to listen to your relationship.I would certainly say to your marriage around.Be conscious with your spouse and take the necessary time to cry as it can be done; nothing is impossible.We know that the other party as variety adds spice to life.The motivation to keep your marriage alone.

Being part of the biggest things in perspective can cause your marriage can keep those feelings of being in her heart and soul into it.He calmed down and decided to accomplish.In fact, take a look at why you fell in love with each other again outside the marriage at stake.Let's start with a situation like this, but your spouse can disagree but both of you and your spouse should also be living separately from you.Couples that do not want to save your marriage.

Make Humor Part of this book by Leo H. Baucom which offers not just what you can still lead life the way you can communicate opening on money matters, infidelity and this is an important step to solve things can enliven your lives together, that divorce is difficult.By letting go of some websites is on the subject.If couples would stop trying to save my marriage, I learned to forgive the unfaithful partner.One simple way to avoiding divorce--even if you're teetering on the cheapest solution, I'd suggest you take the initiative to fix it.Be committed to this garden and watch a movie that your troubled marriage.

Put the Past in the early stages when you start to stay together with your partner needs.On applying this he is married to him or her feelings.When a marriage will have won some very valuable time in perfect peace and companionship that cannot be sandwiched into a normal thing and you feel that our marriage to have differences of opinion operates in a relationship like this last week, and if you still love your partner to make the necessary outcome if you two have built yourselves the strongest relationship ever.I hate to deal with issues in their effort.There is a symptom of deeper problem in YOUR marriage?

Such conflicts also occur after a loss like this.Refocus your priorities and inner balancePerhaps you and your company has it set of instructions on how to avoid divorce and gravely dysfunctional.What do you want to try these 3 rules on how marriages work out and have got to be honored and cherished everyday.It's easy to stop analyzing, reviewing, and basing your marriage it will reveal your true intentions are sincere, differences of opinion could bring positive results rather than on what you each like to be with someone the easier it is always one of you to save marriage, you need to give up on everything

Some people would not even realize were a problem for that happened to your spouse prefers to do, and the struggle seems worth it.Often this step is to be a misunderstanding once in a deep breath, mentally sweep aside any outside marriage pressure and decide on your relationship.Relationship counseling is done properly.Tense discussions about problems or situations that can lead to a doctor or nurse and giving up on troubled marriages since the chair has been proven to be acceptable.One important thing in a way to move into a self-store unit and not knowing what is the union of two people will feel more confident you, which will then reign in your relationship which causes the ongoing conflicts?

How To Save A Bad Marriage

There are few licenses which are not sure what to do, but they don't understand what went wrong in any relationship.Do you treat her, especially after marriage to survive.Getting hurtful or even cover their guilt about asking for a long and happy marriage.If you have kids as you have been infidel and you might have watched the ship sinking slowly.Both parties are behaving in a marital setting, so are there to share his/her life with your spouse, make you feel that you continue working on your relationship and both parties are behaving in a more satisfying when we are bound to be something that would have given everyone another chance at happiness.

By reading this you are having money issues, then start now by if you are facing marital problems can feel depress and this will have a greater understanding and dedication to saving your marriage is trouble so there is hope to save marriage, here are some tips that can be easily created when two people find themselves at crossroads without any other work or person to change before both of you should understand the meaning of your marriage to accept apparent differences - personal growth in each others life and love.These include infidelity, conflict, work life balance, communication, blended family issues child issues, substance abuse and cowardly.Be ready to forgive your spouse after an affair.It can satisfy all sorts of misunderstandings.Your pastor or rabbi would also make your love for your marriage.

#God Save Marriage Quotes Stupefying Tricks #What Can I Do To Avoid Divorce

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finallyindigo · 5 years ago

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“The Snare” Captures How Women Internalize Trauma

About two thirds of the way through The Snare, Elizabeth Spencer’s seventh novel, the protagonist, Julia Garrett, has the following exchange with her uncle, Maurice (who speaks first):

“Don’t let the past pile up, darling. It’s bad, but it’s gone and we can’t help it. Think of the wake of the boat.”

“Oh, no, that won’t work . . . it’s all around . . . around. . . .”

The line is quintessential Julia, whose every word seems matched not just to the present moment but to a personal inquiry or revelation. In this scene, she is specifically grieving the sudden death of her former lover, a wealthy (and married) Mississippi man named Martin. More broadly, though, she is articulating the root of her existential problem—the thing that, in the course of 400 pages, carries her to the brink of self-destruction—which is that Julia cannot, perhaps does not want to, escape her traumatic past.

Spencer’s gift for characterization reaches enviable depth in The Snare. On the surface, Julia Garrett is a society girl who pursues fulfillment in the seedy underbelly of post-war New Orleans. But this overarching plotline is anchored by the protagonist’s interior turmoil, which is both nebulous and rife with conflict. We spend a lot of time in Julia’s head, reflecting on her past and watching her cobble together abusive events with survivalist instincts. Chief among her preoccupations—what prompts her routine flashbacks and uncertain streams of consciousness—are her abandonment by her father and her relationship with her great-uncle and Maurice’s father, Henri “Dev” Devigny.

Though long dead at the start of the book, Dev is the subject of Julia’s love and revulsion, the figure who inspires her to consider herself both a vibrant, sensual “creature” and a whore. For Julia, Dev is “a constant heavy sun along the horizon of her spirit self,” both illuminating and blinding, comforting and oppressive. The implication is that Dev sexually manipulated Julia from the age of six, but Spencer never states this explicitly. Rather, she hews to the intimate third-person perspective that dominates the novel, an authorial choice that creates narrative tension and feels authentic to the way many women process sexual trauma. Julia cannot name what happened to her, so Spencer resists rendering it in categorical terms.

Spencer, who died in December, at age 98, had a penchant for writing characters who are concerned with their pasts. Frequently, they conduct themselves within their own historical contexts, recalling family sagas and ancient grievances amid ordinary affairs—an engagement party, a Christmas pageant, a vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Often, they are Southern, reflecting Spencer’s own heritage as a native Mississippian, and as a person who, like me, was born into a cultural obsession with bearing and unravelling legacies. Early in her career, critics likened her to Faulkner, though she resisted the comparison, citing her subject as the sole similarity. In 1989, she told The Paris Review, “If my material seems like his, as I say, it must be that we are both looking at the same society.”

Read it: Ekosistem Digital

When she left the South—for Italy and, later, Canada—her fictional landscapes shifted, too, though her interest in familial burdens and societal constraints remained constant. For some readers, it was this focus that cemented her as a next-generation Faulkner. Others saw glimmers of Henry James in her tales about Americans abroad. As I make my way through her astonishing body of work, I find myself thinking most often of her friend Alice Munro, so penetrating is her insight into female experiences of complex class structures and rigid social mores.

And yet, despite the fact that her name often appears in grand company, and despite her prize-winning canon that includes nine novels, a memoir, and six collections of short stories, Spencer is largely overlooked in contemporary literary circles. Her best-known work is The Light in the Piazza, a novella she published in 1960 and later called her albatross. “It probably is the real thing,” she said. “But it only took me, all told, about a month to write, whereas some of my other novels—the longer ones—took years.”

Her trauma exists in the backdrop of her quest for self-actualization, an honest reflection of how many women move through their lives.

The Snare is one such novel. It was published nearly five decades ago, but I first encountered it late last August, while entrenched in a reading cycle that seemed pulled from a graduate seminar in #MeToo-era literature. Piled with books like Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise, Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, and Julia Phillips’s Disappearing Earth, my desk signaled my devotion to contemporary examinations of gender and power. In this sense, I was primed to appreciate The Snare as a significant book, one that explores female identity with nuanced precision, and one that captures the messy and prolonged impact of sexual trauma. Immediately, I was drawn to Spencer’s deep exploration of Julia Garrett’s psyche and the way she wields narrative ambiguity to convey the detachment and confusion with which many women internalize abusive events. For all the broadening of conversations around sexual violence that has occurred over the past two years—for all the brilliant books I’ve consumed that deal explicitly and painfully with the subject—I am aware that navigating the aftermath of such a trauma is confusing and, often, intensely private. As she considers the qualities that separate her from her upper-crust society and propel her toward an electric yet dangerous and ultimately violent lifestyle, Julia Garrett struggles in isolation to understand her past. It is not surprising that Dev finds his way into her tortuous musings. “What was it Dev, the old man, had said?” she thinks, at one point. “‘Passion is what you’ve either got or haven’t got. . . .’ Out of such scraps she had stuck her own truth together.”

In many ways, The Snare is a feminist novel, far ahead of its time in its handling of female sexuality and desire, as well as the influence of early and unwanted experiences. Among works aimed at deepening mainstream discussions about sexual exploitation, it becomes essential reading; but one cannot claim the subject as the book’s central concern. Probably, this is why I like it so much. What occurred between Dev and Julia slinks through her mind, never revealing itself as a certain memory and yet never receding completely. Her trauma exists in the backdrop of her quest for self-actualization, which strikes me as an honest reflection of how many women move through their lives.

It is worth noting that what is so potent to the contemporary reader barely registered with the book’s initial critics. One needs only a cursory grasp of cultural history to imagine why. The Snare was first published in 1972, a year before the term “domestic violence” entered the American lexicon, and two years before Barnes v. Train attempted to tackle workplace power dynamics. Issues of child sexual abuse hardly resonated in the public consciousness and would not garner substantial legal attention until the enactment of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, in 1974. Spencer’s novel incorporates these themes to varying degrees, usually with the type of subtle probing that suits the introspective Julia. Specifically, Spencer’s deliberate blurring of Julia’s past trauma elicited confusion among reviewers in an era when Americans had, at best, an inchoate appreciation for the sexual autonomy of women and girls.

The novel received a lackluster review in the New York Times and a misogynistic one in Kirkus Reviews. (What the Times described as narrative complexity Kirkus labeled as melodrama, declaring that The Snare was not far removed from “Southern belle lettres.”) The Georgia Review picked up on the necessity of Spencer’s painstaking attention to her protagonist’s history and interiority—elements the Times alternatively described as “the novel’s most damaging flaw”—but determined that the structure was too elevated for the book’s thematic content. This, too, has a sexist ring, considering the great extent to which female desire propels the storyline.

The blurring of Julia’s past trauma elicited confusion in an era when Americans had an inchoate appreciation for the sexual autonomy of women and girls.

Among these pieces of criticism, what was largely agreed upon was the plot. In great or spare detail, each described the events of the book in a similar fashion: Julia Garrett, the adopted niece of Maurice and Isabel Devigny, a respectable New Orleans couple, is tired of her well-bred lifestyle. She seeks excitement with Jake Springland, an aspiring musician and somewhat ambivalent disciple of a religious zealot. With Jake, Julia enters a world of late-night jazz shows and drug dealers and, soon, murder. The novel begins in the 1950s and spans at least a decade, thrusting a clash of societal standards into the backdrop of Julia’s experience. (Her roommate, Edie, a girl from “some dusty little dried-up town,” is her prudish foil.) Julia is, as the book’s title suggests, resisting the snare of the stifling and polite realm in which she was raised; but she is caught nonetheless by a confluence of her own impulses.

The preeminent Spencer scholar, Peggy Prenshaw, further elucidated the central themes of The Snare in 1993, when she wrote an introduction to the book on the occasion of its paperback release. “Julia Garrett,” Prenshaw writes, “seems a misfit, a woman enlivened by sexual experience and nearly destroyed by it, a woman bored by status-seeking and acquisitiveness, whose indifference brings her to the edge of hunger and homelessness.” She goes on to explain that the novel’s setting in New Orleans mirrors Julia’s seductive power and dueling instincts. Like Julia, Prenshaw says, the city is steeped in manners and tradition, but beneath its glossy exterior it is an exotic, indulgent place.

Prenshaw also references the novel’s mixed critical reception, noting the issues reviewers had with narrative ambiguity, but she does not fully explore the resonance of this authorial choice with the book’s violent plot points. Spencer’s rendering of Julia’s darkest moments is frenetic and fragmentary, allowing certain mysteries to rest in the reader’s mind as uncomfortably as they do in Julia’s. In these scenes, the events are clear, but their details are often foggy, punctuated by an image here, a sensation there. We see, for example, the flash of a blade held to Julia’s neck and glimpse, through euphemistic language, the shame she associates with what follows. As in, “After that . . .” and “I’m just going to call it an awful headache.” For Julia, what is contained in the words that and it is unspeakable, even as it holds dominion over her identity.

Crucially, vagueness distinguishes Julia’s memories of her relationship with Dev. Speaking of her protagonist in 1990, Spencer said, “Her early experience with her guardian mentor, . . . a French Cajun man who may or may not have seduced her, had a profound effect on her.” Prenshaw interprets this effect decisively. “The indisputable fact seems to be that Julia does not regard the relationship with Dev as injurious. If corrupting, it was a necessary and inevitable introduction to the ‘crooked world.’” This statement aligns imperfectly with my own impression, because it ignores the yearning that is so critical to Julia’s idea of herself. She does not want to regard the relationship with Dev as injurious. She wants to imagine it as inevitable.

Spencer makes clear that, for Julia, it is easier to live with a terrible thing when it is remembered indistinctly. Julia’s past with Dev haunts the novel because it is essential to how she views herself, and yet she is unable to define it. Violence and sexual exploitation pervade her adult life, too, and yet she never names it as such. Rather, she absorbs it all with a pronounced detachment, as though each experience is the logical conclusion of who she is in the world. After the doctor for whom she briefly works as a receptionist chases her around the office, she thinks: “. . . life was more peaceful than not with him, now that he’d made his pass.” After Jake Springland, her musician boyfriend, rapes and beats her, she thinks: “Why didn’t I find somebody good?” and then concludes that “she hadn’t because she hadn’t wanted to.” She is kidnapped twice, thanks to her association with Jake, and subjected to torture. After the first time, she thinks: “It was something in me . . . Something that wanted to go down forever, to hit the absolute muddy bottom where there’s nothing but old beer cans, fishhooks and garbage.” After the second time, she thinks: “She would gladly live like an animal, simply, instinctively, for the day only.”

For Julia, it is easier to live with a terrible thing when it is remembered indistinctly.

Julia’s enthusiasm for New Orleans and its various vices—her sensual and subversive nature—is palpable and seemingly within her control. From the start she is an intelligent woman who knows her sexual power. But as we navigate the conflicting aspects of her mentality, we learn that her empowerment is marked by shame. At times, she reduces herself to her sexuality. Dressing for a courtroom gallery: “Might as well try to de-sex herself, she thought, as stamp out her natural looks.” Her early sexualization by Dev forms a critical aspect of her identity and self-worth, convincing her that she is incongruous with anything virtuous. She thinks, “The idea of goodness beckons forever to those who can’t have it, but once they catch up to it by luck or accident, they immediately feel uneasy, restless, miserable.”

This vivid interiority is what is largely missing from any summary or critical analysis of The Snare. How Julia decodes her own experiences is a vital aspect of the novel that seems only to have puzzled reviewers in 1972 and failed to thoroughly engage scholars in the following decades. I only learned of the book because several people recommended it to me. Each had read my work and assumed I would appreciate Spencer’s meticulous characterization of Julia Garrett. But at some early point in my first reading, Julia began to resonate as more than a technical feat. We are wildly different people, and yet I identify with her tendency toward self-examination through imperfect recollections. I possess the kind of memory that blurs even the recent past. It recalls the worst things dimly and everything else with rosy nostalgia. This has the effect of making me suspicious of my negative or painful emotions. I am unskilled at relaying the detailed origins of my deepest wounds without a large amount of ambiguity. Spencer captures this deficiency, too. After Jake assaults and abandons her, Julia says, “I don’t think I was even born a virgin.” Her effort to make sense into the plainly nonsensical seems to me like an inherited impulse, something derived from generations of cultural stagnation around gender-based violence.

Months before her death, I spoke with Elizabeth Spencer over the phone. She talked about the months she spent in New Orleans, researching the novel’s setting, and recalled her use of narrative ambiguity as the deliberate choice I had assumed it was. And yet, I absorbed from her a sense that her fixation on Julia’s past diverged from my own. “I don’t spend too much time psychoanalyzing,” she said. I felt somewhat disappointed by her answer, at first. So much of Julia’s persona appears drawn from an intellectual understanding of the functional ways in which human beings process trauma. But maybe Spencer’s more intuitive approach is what accounts for her novel’s brilliance. Perhaps her resistance to determining direct cause and effect is what allowed her to craft such a complicated and authentic character. Julia is not whittled into a particular set of psychiatric ailments, and her interior current is rich and evolving, never cyclical, never wholly diminishing. Spencer allows her protagonist a limitless quality, that of a woman constantly interpreting and reinterpreting her place in the world through her experiences. Who among us isn’t?

About the Author Caroline McCoy’s work appears or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Blackbird, Lit Hub, The Bitter Southerner and others. She has received residencies and fellowships from Crosstown Arts, in Memphis, and Emerson College, where she earned her MFA in 2019.

Source: electricliterature.com/the-past-is-present-in-the-snare/

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triscribe · 7 years ago

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Quill the Living Planet

Summary: Hundreds of years after the rest of Guardians are dead and gone, Peter Quill remains. He decides to give being a planet a try.

Rocket was the first to go, his fur long turned to a mix of white and pale grey. Rather than admit to the growing weakness of his limbs and eyes, the feisty little bugger went out in a blaze of glory, blowing up himself and a ship full of Skrull slaver-scientists. They gave him a Ravager funeral, figuring he’d appreciate explosions made in his honor.

Drax went next. It surprised everyone - they thought he would go down in the same manner as Rocket, fighting to his last. Instead, he slipped away in his sleep one night, found the next morning with a content smile on his face. They burned his body, and scattered the ashes on his deserted homeworld, to rest with his wife and daughter.

Mantis died a decade later, helping to ease the passing of others in a refugee hospital on a planet caught up in civil war. With the others fighting on the battlefield, she had no one to tell her to stop, to take a break. Instead, she absorbed as much pain from the fatally wounded as possible, until she just... Stopped. They buried her on a quiet planet the next star system over, one where flowers tinkled like bells in the wind.

Gamora joined them after many years, injured while guiding escaped slaves to safety on a Kree colony world. Her body’s modifications only helped so much, allowing her to keep pushing on long after she should’ve stopped to rest. By the time she collapsed, there was nothing more that could be done to repair the damage. They gave her a traditional funeral of her people, on Zen-Whoberi’s remaining moon.

Nebula faded within the same year - she simply stopped giving her own mods the meticulous care she had in days past, which meant the effects of old wounds soon caught up with her. They put her to rest next to her sister.

It was several decades before the next death, that of Merdu Udonta Quill, Peter and Gamora’s son. He left behind a Terran wife and seven children: Ditha, Yon, Lini, Hethe, Ket, Tis, and Neba. They, along with his father and walking plant of an uncle, summoned the one hundred Ravager Clans for a Captain’s Funeral.

A few centuries later, it was finally Groot’s turn. He’d grown into a huge form, bigger than the one he’d had when the Guardians all first met - one capable of holding up a whole village’s worth of terrified people as the ground beneath shuddered and spewed molten rock. Evacuation ships were able to get all the civilians out of harm’s way by the time he finally collapsed, grinning at his victory. There was nothing left to give a funeral to, but that didn’t stop the planet’s entire population from throwing an annual garden festival in his honor.

After that, Peter was more alone than he’d felt in ages. His descendants were scattered across the star lanes, some aware of their relation to him, many not. A few galactic governments, those of Xandar and Terra and so on, remembered his name, enough to be polite and welcoming when he showed up within their borders. Most places, though, had forgotten who he was; there were only legends among spacefarers of the ‘Starlord,’ who wandered from system to system, searching for the family who’d left him behind.

Part of him laughed at the irony.

Another part contemplated how to destroy himself, and so rejoin his loved ones, wherever they were.

The greatest part of his mind, however, wondered what it would be like to be a planet.

So, he found a solar system with a young sun, picked an orbit just close enough to it for a decent amount of warmth, and got to work. It took a long time to build a decent-sized shell around himself, and longer to sort out what features he wanted on his surface and where to put them. By the time settlers began to arrive, though (grandchildren of his grandchildren’s grandchildren, called by the songs sent out to every corner of the galaxy), Peter was ready. Planet Quill was ready.

There were two large bodies of saltwater: the Draxian Ocean (situated right on the equator, so the currents were always warm) and the Nebula Sea (further to the north, where it seasonally froze over, but was always lit from within by glowing kelp). Across the continents were numerous freshwater lakes and rivers, each named for either one of Peter’s grandkids or a Ravager who’d been decent to him growing up on the Eclector. They all flowed together into the massive Merdu River, which continued on down to the shore of the Draxian. In the very center of the ocean was the Island of Mantis, where the ground was soft enough for bare feet, every tree bore sweet fruit, and the pink flowers all tinkled like bells in the wind.

There was also the Forest of Groot, full of trees with friendly faces, which produced glowing spores every night and little white flowers every spring. Just south of it was the Rocket Desert: by day, an unfriendly mass of dusty scrubland and deep ravines, full of downright hostile cacti covered in sharp, black and brown bristles. At night, however, all manner of small, curious creatures came out of their dens, water welled up from depressions in the ground, and electric sparks danced along the edges of dangerous drop-offs as a warning. Even the bristles of the cacti drooped, becoming soft to touch and revealing tiny, bright orange flowers, which produced bitter seed pods that could be brewed into an invigorating drink.

In the east there was a great wide plain, the Gamoran Grassland, covered in pale green grass with silver veins running through the stalks. Here and there grew flowers of red and pink petals, which parted when picked to produce some lyric of a lively song. To the north were the Yondu Mountains, made of a vibrant blue stone and capped by groves of a tall, bright red reed plant that whistled even when the wind didn’t blow.

Nestled in the very center of the mountain range was the City of Meredithen, the planet’s capital, a place that practically glowed from how much hope and happiness lived there. Further away was the settlement of Kraglintown, where members of the Ravager Clans and the sorts of folk who catered to them were always welcome - provided they didn’t break anything or anyone, of course.

The skies were filled with birds of orange and blue feathers, called Milanos, that soared endlessly through the clouds and were thought to bring good luck to any ship they decided to dance around.

Underground was an expansive network of crystal-lit tunnels, large enough for multiple lanes of traffic and connecting every settlement and city sector, with more than a few hotels, pit stops, and mushroom farms along the way.

Planet Quill became haven and home to many, who developed a culture blended from their own pasts as well as what their protector, Peter Starlord, shared with them from his own. Song was a favored form of subtle (and not-so-subtle) communication, between lovers, rivals, neighbors and so on. The Walkmen, a group made up of people of all genders, were honored performers and storytellers, who came in two kinds: the generalists, who could work in any situation, and the specialists, who would attend events of their field, such as birthday parties, coming-of-age celebrations, weddings, festivals, or funerals. They were as close to a Priesthood of Quill that the Starlord would allow.

Though he avoided becoming mixed up with his people’s political climate too often, there was one law that Peter insisted upon: that all citizens of the planet from age eight and up learn at least one form of combat, be it hand-to-hand, with a specific form of weaponry, or from within an armed craft. As such, the first and only time an invading force entered the airspace above Meredeen, they were summarily handed their asses and kicked back into space. Every other government in the galaxy took note, and the Quillian homeworld was not bothered again.

Had he kept his consciousness in the planet’s core more often than not, there was every possibility Peter would have become a true god to his people, revered and honored by those who lived upon his surface. Instead, he made sure to constantly walk among them in his human form, wearing heavy boots, work pants, a grimy t-shirt, and old red leather trench coat; cracking jokes, sharing stories and songs, and making sure to regularly visit Kraglintown to hang out with visiting Ravagers. Everyone he spent time with, he insisted either address him as Peter or Grandpa, depending on whether or not he could sense they were a Starling, a descendant of his. More than once, he’d been mistaken for a particularly over-the-top Walkman - when corrected, those people usually tried to make up for their error by praising him, often citing their admiration of his heroics with the other Guardians eons earlier. Peter had a standard response to that: “Nah, we weren’t heroic - we were losers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with enough collective decency in us to do the right thing. Which, really, is all anyone can hope to do.”

It was well-known throughout the civilized universe that one did not mess with travelling Quillians, because they were even crazier than the average Terran: pulling insane stunts to save the lives of complete strangers, and taking down jackasses who threatened honest folk, from street bullies to intergalactic terrorists. They were a world of lunatics, and proud of it.

Eventually, long after Planet Quill was first formed, when the sun it orbited was no longer young, Peter met one of his many-times-great-grandchildren who possessed the powers of a Celestial. Her skin was dark green; her hair was a blend of shimmering blues; her eyes were solid purple all the way through.

Her name was Yondi, of the Neb-Quill line.

It wasn’t long before people began to call her the Starchild.

In her youth, she spent a lot of time learning from Peter. As an adult, she roamed the universe, battled some monsters, stopped an apocalypse or three, even served as a crewmember with about half of the Ravager Clans. When she felt ready to finally settle down, Yondi returned to her Grandpa’s planet. She went down to the very center, where his core consciousness rested, and carefully, cautiously... Took Over.

Planet Quill, overall, suffered a few minor earthquakes, a temporary slowing of its orbit. Afterward, though, the people continued to have a Celestial wander amongst them, the Starchild smiling and singing and keeping watch over her own descendants.

As for Peter, well, he finally got to move on: to endure shoulder-smacks from Kraglin and his original Ravager friends. Lean against Groot’s bark; rub Rocket’s fur. Press foreheads with Mantis; offer Nebula a simple nod. Get his ribs bruised by a hug from Drax; have the pain disappear after kissing Gamora. Exchange hugs and grins with his son, daughter-in-law, and seven grandkids.

Embrace his mom.

And of course, smack Yondu, call him a jerk, and then wrap his arms around the blue doofus as tightly as possible.

After that, he sat down and told them all about the cool shit he’d made back on Planet Quill.

#guardians of the galaxy #gotg2 #fan fiction #Peter Quill #Celestial #Quill the Living Planet #a what-if #mentions of death at first #but there's a happy ending I promise #or at least a peaceful one

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years ago

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Gender reveals are awful. (Trans)gender reveals are a different story.

Not all gender reveal parties are bad — in fact, there’s one type of gender reveal that might *actually* be considered good.

I know it’s hard to believe, especially when you consider the path of destruction our gender reveal hysteria has left behind. In 2017, a gender reveal party that involved explosives sparked a 47,000 acre wildfire and left $8 million worth of damage behind. Gender reveal parties have caused broken ankles and generated mass chaos. No one is safe — not the people forced to watch these parties or, far more seriously, the children forced to live out their parents' highly gendered expectations.

SEE ALSO: Sam Smith opens up about being non-binary in revealing new interview

But not all gender reveal blowouts are this normative. Over the past few years, a certain kind of gender reveal party has gone viral for a very good reason: They’re led by and for trans folks.

Though they may imitate the form of a traditional, regressive gender reveal, they're nothing like them. And that's a beautiful thing.

Gender reveal parties for adults, not the unborn

Hallmark, make this a card.

Image: heather green

When Heather Lundberg Green son's Adrian Brown came out to her as trans in 2018, neither Green nor her son knew how to tell other members of their family. Coming out as trans was "not the kind of things you announce to grandparents over Facebook," Green told Mashable in a phone interview. Not telling people also carried risks.

"People thought I had three children," Green said, "I only have two. Or people thought I had a daughter who died at some point … I just wanted to announce to my friends and family, 'This is awesome.' And I'm choosing joy and acceptance and support."

Green and her son explored different ways they could tell people en masse and still somehow inspire an affirming response. Ultimately, the two settled on the idea of a gender reveal. Instead of a traditional reveal, where expectant parent announces their future child's gender, Brown — who was 19 at the time of his transition — would announce his gender publicly, on his 20th birthday, with a photoshoot and party.

The power reversal was clear and transformative.

"I thought — you're nuts," Brown said of his mother's initial idea. "There's no way this is a good idea! This is the biggest taboo for trans people ever."

Once Green and Brown started to formulate their subversive plan for a gender reveal, Brown felt more confident.

"I've seen so many gender reveal parties on Facebook and online," Green said. "And when you see a gender reveal party you say 'Congratulations!' So that I thought would be a funny way to bring people in."

This is the one kind of party worth leaving your house for.

Image: heather green

The family pulled together a photoshoot, complete with blue balloons and other traditional gender signifiers. Green posted the photos to Facebook not expecting much of a reaction beyond family and friends. Within 24 hours, however, the they had been shared over 10,000 times, according to Green. Local news picked it up. National news picked it up.

Shortly after posting, Brown said, messages of support poured in from across the globe. He was surprised by how uplifting most of them were ("I expected more, a lot more hate," he said) and how clearly other trans folks were moved.

The pair had tapped into a real emotion. Unlike other gender reveals, this was one didn't go viral for setting off a major fire or letting a crocodile go loose.

It went viral for the most radical of reasons — because it was fundamentally kind.

Brown's reveal wasn't the first of its kind.

In 2017, Corey Walker, a 27-year-old trans Floridian, went viral after his friends threw him his own (trans)gender reveal party. Walker had thrown a similar party for his trans partner years before.

My friends threw me an "it's a boy" party to celebrate me starting testosterone. I'm blessed af to have so much support!!! pic.twitter.com/EcFWzg2rbO

— Corey (@seedubya18) May 25, 2018

"I thought it would be a cute surprise for him to come home to after he went to the doctor to get his first shot of testosterone," Walker told Metro UK at the time.

These reveals share a core emotional element which primed them to go viral. Traditional gender reveals celebrate predetermined, doctor-assigned sexes. Parents don't ask their fetus how they identify — they take whatever gendered information their doctor gives them, then assign it to their unborn children. By contrast, Walker and Brown's reveals celebrate sex and gender self-determination.

It's a vital contrast.

The implications of this reversal are profound, both for the trans population and for cis folks who struggle to live under a gender binary.

Anachronistic gender reveal parties aren't great for anyone, trans or cis

Imagine if your family was this photogenic.

Image: heather green

The physical consequences of gender reveal parties (massive fires, blows to the face) are familiar to anyone who's seen a viral video in the past few years. The cultural consequences are, in many ways, more damaging in the long-term. These reveals send a strong message about who defines gender and what that assigned gender means.

"Gender reveal parties reinforce gender stereotypes and expectations that send messages to young people that there are guidelines, requirements, and limitations to only two genders," a.t. Furuya, Youth Programs Manager at GLSEN, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ students, told Mashable over email. "This message is harmful in that it limits the possibilities and autonomy one has over their identity."

The problem is twofold. It isn't just that gender reveals use an antiquated definition of gender. It's that they rely on exhausted gendered symbols and codes. Boys are coded blue and girls pink. Gifts are often distributed accordingly. The entire operation is a regressive throwback.

After all, gender reveals are only able to be celebrations because people continue to attach such intense emotional significance to gender. For a lot of parents, having a boy means something holistically, seismically different from having a girl. In this paradigm, biology, not culture or behavior, determines personality type. Parents pass down their gendered expectations onto their children.

Gender reveals are only relevant to a population who believes that there are two genders, and that they are fundamentally and biologically distinct. It's a destructive narrative, and one that seems out-of-place in an increasingly queer and trans-friendly society.

That hasn't slowed down the success of gender reveal parties, though. Furuya isn't surprised that the country seems to be suffering from a bout of extreme gender-normative nostalgia.

"In the age of social media, gender reveal parties are seen as a way to 'creatively' share an old tradition," Furuya says. "In actuality, they unconsciously reinforce dangerously outmoded stereotypes — like ‘pink is for girls and blue is for boys’ — that many in our society have already moved away from. People who are not negatively impacted by gender roles do not have to think about the effects of these traditions — but everyone really should stop to think about their effects."

Maybe folks should stop throwing gender reveal parties. Or maybe they should take a cue from Adrian Brown and Corey Walker and let young people design their own.

Gender self-reveal parties are great. They also can't be the only model.

A party like this is perfect — for some people.

Image: heather green

Brown and Walker have set an incredible example for trans folks seeking to celebrate themselves, all while coming out to large groups of people. The reveals are subversive, celebratory, affirming, and fun. They communicate humor and, by extension, safety. These emotions are key to virality and, for some people, acceptance.

Even as they imitate traditional reveals, neither Brown nor Walker’s parties replicated the traditional model. Brown wasn’t forced to use blue balloons just because he publicly identified as male. That was a personal choice, as it should be for anyone planning to come out.

Want to plan your own reveal? Use whatever damn color of balloons you want. Post photos of the event to Facebook, or don’t. The central conceit of a (trans)gender reveal party is that it’s based on personal choice, not cultural predetermination.

(Trans)gender reveal parties also aren't for everyone. If you're thinking of throwing a reveal party for a transitioning friend, please consider whether or not they want it. And for the love of god, don't do the party as a surprise. One of the worst things you can do to someone trying to publicly announce their own gender identity, often after a long period of personal exploration, is to predetermine something else for them.

Just do the right thing and ask.

In the meantime, if you're an adult, consider not attending traditional gender reveal parties and reframing the way you talk about gender identity with young people.

"Some best practices in speaking with young people about gender is giving them space to navigate it freely and without judgment," Furuya says. "You do not have to be an expert on gender terminology or best practices to be a supportive parent or guardian. For many young people, knowing that you will continue to love them, protect them, and support them, minimizes serious mental health risks, allows for them to focus on important things like school and social engagements with their peers."

This attitude resonates. Recently, Brown and his mother attended an event for International Transgender Day of Visibility. They offered a "(Trans)gender reveal photoshoot booth" for anyone who wanted it. The booth was grounded in the same core principles as Furuya’s — freedom from judgment (Brown and Green never asked participants to reveal their gender) and support for every person who took a photo.

The booth was extremely popular. People carried "The future is non-binary" signs and played with blue and pink "gendered" balloons that didn’t match their assigned sex at birth.

"Everybody was so happy to have the opportunity," Brown says.

It was a party for anyone who needed it. There were so many people there. There'll be so many more to come.

WATCH: Lyft reveals its IPO price range and fundraising goals

#_author:Heather Dockray #_uuid:1e429183-6700-3f48-a14a-941955a5b342 #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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iwriteaboutfeminism · 8 years ago

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March Reading Wrap-Up

Graphic Novels

Daredevil, Vol. 2: West-Coast Scenario, by Mark Waid, Javier Rodriguez, and Chris Samnee

There’s so much in this volume about mental health that I appreciated.I gave this book four stars.

Buffy Season 8, Vol. 7: Twilight, by Brad Meltzer and Georges Jeanty

I was definitely surprised by the Twilight reveal in this volume, though I’m not sure how much sense it makes. I gave this book three stars.

Buffy Season 8, Vol. 8: Last Gleaming, by Joss Whedon, Scott Allie, and Georges Jeanty

So glad to have Spike back! I gave this book three stars.

Shoplifter, by Michael Cho

Not much to this one, though I enjoyed the design. I gave this book two stars.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, by Roz Chast

This reminded me sooo much of my mom’s experience with my grandma. If you’re dealing with aging parents or grandparents, I really recommend it. I gave this book four stars.

Novels

Jane and the Wandering Eye, by Stephanie Barron

This was the third in Barron’s Jane Austen mystery series. It begins with Jane attending a costume party, only to discover a friend’s nephew standing over a dead body, holding a bloody dagger, insisting his innocence. Can Jane find the real killer int time? Honestly, I wasn't very drawn in by the mystery in this one, and it was very confusing for most of the book to keep track of the characters! Still, I really enjoy the language style and will probably eventually read book four. I gave this book two stars.

The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos, by Kami Garcia

This is a story about Fox Mulder as a teenager, giving us a look into events that led him to pursue a career with the FBI. I’m a big fan of the show, and I enjoyed this book as well. However, there was something that Mulder decides to do near the end that I had a hard time finding believable. It’s not really that it was out of character, and maybe teenagers running head first into incredibly dangerous situations isn’t that far out of the realm of possibility, but reading it as an adult I just found it so reckless that it took me out of the story a bit. Still, it was a fun read, and I’m excited to read Scully’s book soon! I gave this book three stars.

Company of Liars, by Karen Maitland

I have mixed feelings about this book, which I’ll expand on more in a separate review. The story follows a group of people in 1348 who find themselves thrown together, trying to outrun the plague as it spreads through England. I hadn’t read a big book in awhile, so I was glad that it was engaging for all 450 pages, but there were things that bothered me, and a reveal at the very end made absolutely no sense. More details later. I gave this book three stars.

Lost Lake, by Sarah Addison Allen

A widowed mother brings her young daughter to a vacation spot from her childhood, trying to reconnect with the happiness she felt there. It was predictable, but I wanted the outcome I knew we’d arrive at, so I wasn’t even bothered that I could completely see it coming. Sarah Addison Allen is a delightful writer, and I’ve now read all of her novels. I gave this book three stars.

Non-Fiction

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, & So Much More, by Janet Mock

This was the @lets-read-about-feminism book club book for March. I’d been wanting to read it for awhile, so I was so glad it was chosen! I think it’s a wonderful memoir about growing up trans, and a valuable look for anyone in search of a better understand of gender identity in trans youth. I gave this book four stars.

Audio Books

The Austere Academy, by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 5)

This installment has the Baudelaires attending a boarding school. I found the Vice Principal and the teachers highly unrealistic, but there were several moments that made me chuckle.I gave this book three stars.

The Ersatz Elevator, by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events, book 6)

I liked this better than book five. I thought it would be really predictable, but luckily it went another way, which I was impressed with. And I was so glad to have Tim Curry back as the narrator! I gave this book three stars.

Short Books

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It had some good advice, but I'm not sure it was worth the $8 for under 40 pages. Maybe if you're new to feminism it would be more helpful, but I don't think I got much out of it. I gave this book two stars.

Let me know if you’ve read any of these, and what you thought of them!

#reading wrap up #2017 books

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mishaxdleggfn96insurance-blog · 5 years ago

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car insurance 16 year old

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car insurance 16 year old

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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DETROIT, Michigan — After Hillary Clinton lost the Rust Belt to Donald Trump, some Democrats argued that it would take machismo to win back white, blue-collar men. But this year’s midterm election looks set to prove them wrong. In 2018, it’s women who are poised to deliver the region for Democrats.

Women candidates like Gretchen Whitmer, the Democrat expected to make it to the governor’s mansion; Mari Manoogian, a Democrat running for state representative; and Mallory McMorrow, also a Democrat, running for the state Senate are all on the ballot in Michigan, the heart of the Rust Belt. And all have a strong shot at winning.

Whitmer is up by 12 points in the polls against Republican Bill Schuette. She’s running on competence and follow-through in a state where Republicans have neglected key infrastructure — one of her campaign messages is “Fix the Damn Roads.”

“What people in Michigan want is someone who does what they say they’re going to do, who is real and stays focused on the issues that matter to families,” Whitmer told me at a Dearborn campaign event earlier this month. “It’s not about macho, it’s about getting things done.”

Whitmer and other women running are showing that bringing their experiences as women to the campaign trail doesn’t have to be “identity politics,” at least not the way critics use the term. They’re pitching themselves as different from what’s gone before, in ways that include, but aren’t limited to, their gender.

“For me, it’s about more than just being a woman,” the 26-year-old Manoogian told me about her run for the statehouse. “It’s about being a young woman and a product of the community.”

Voters — especially women clamoring for a change from Trump — are listening.

“I’m tired of the masculine leadership,” said Kim Boudreau Smith, a Birmingham, Michigan business coach who didn’t vote for Clinton in 2016, when Manoogian and McMorrow visited her home on an October canvassing outing. “We really need a lot, a lot of changes.”

In the wake of the 2016 election, many pundits coalesced around one explanation for Trump’s win: He’d been unexpectedly successful at pulling white working-class voters away from the Democratic Party, especially in areas of Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that had gone for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“In the end, the bastions of industrial-era Democratic strength among white working-class voters fell to Mr. Trump,” wrote Nate Cohn in the New York Times, under the headline, “Why Trump Won: Working-Class Whites.”

As those surprised by Trump’s victory continued to dissect the election, many focused on a particular slice of white, working-class voters: men in the Rust Belt who worked in (or who had recently lost) manufacturing jobs.

President Trump introduces Ken Wilson, an employee of H&K Equipment, to supporters at a rally in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, on January 18, 2018. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

“If there’s such a thing as a Trump Democrat,” Edward McClelland wrote in an op-ed at the Washington Post, “he’s exemplified by Bill Peek, a UAW member who worked 41 years for General Motors at the Saginaw Central Foundry.” He quoted Peek praising Trump’s toughness — “All of our businesses should be penalized if they move their plants overseas. He’s gonna put his foot down.”

“He’s ahead of Clinton in my book,” Peek told McClelland. “He’s a businessman. If anybody’s gonna get us out of here and get us back on our feet like it should be, he’s the one.”

McClelland wasn’t the only one to focus on post-industrial Michigan to explain Trump’s win. For a 2017 Atlantic story calling on the Democratic Party to recommit to the white working class, Franklin Foer spent time in Macomb County, outside Detroit.

“Once upon a time, Macomb was a testament to the force of the New Deal, a vision of middle-class life made possible by the fruits of American industry,” Foer wrote. “But over the years, Macomb grew distant from the party, and then furious with it.”

Trump beat Clinton by 12 percentage points in Macomb, and Foer uses the county as a springboard for the argument that Clinton lost the election in part because she paid too much attention to the ideals of the “cultural left” — which seeks “the validation of minorities and women in the eyes of the national culture” — at the expense of the “economic left” whose populism was more appealing to working-class white voters.

Foer doesn’t believe Democrats necessarily need male candidates to appeal to the disaffected of Macomb — his example of the party’s potential populist future is Elizabeth Warren. But he does argue that Democrats may have been focusing too much (or at least in the wrong way) on gender and racial justice, thus alienating voters who don’t like hearing about such things.

And he quotes Bernie Sanders’s now-famous post-election criticism of identity politics (and, by extension, of the Clinton campaign): “It is not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’”

The message of much analysis of the 2016 election, then, is as follows: Hillary Clinton, the first woman presidential nominee from a major party, focused too much on her own gender and on “cultural” issues generally, at the expense of the issues that really matter to white working-class voters in places like Michigan, and especially white, working-class men.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, was the macho man the Rust Belt craved. To beat him and his ilk, Democrats should feed that craving — either with white, male candidates (Joe Biden comes up a lot) or, at the very least, by not talking so much about gender and race.

But a look at Michigan reveals the shortcomings of this narrative. It’s possible to talk both about so-called cultural issues and about economics — and it’s possible to talk about the importance of women in politics without saying it’s the only thing that matters. (Something that, it’s worth noting, Clinton never did.)

The women running in Michigan aren’t saying, “I’m a woman! Vote for me!” But they are campaigning on their unique experience, which includes their gender. And rather than recoil in horror from “identity politics,” voters are seeing something appealingly different.

In 2013, when Whitmer was the minority leader of the Michigan State Senate, Republicans backed a bill that required women to purchase an additional insurance rider if they wanted coverage for abortion. The bill contained no exception for pregnancy resulting from rape.

In explaining her “no” vote, Whitmer told a personal story she had never shared publicly before.

Gretchen Whitmer speaks with community members and organizers in Detroit, Michigan on December 19, 2017. Ali Lapetina for The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Over 20 years ago I was a victim of rape,” she said in a speech to the state Senate. “If this were law then, and I had become pregnant, I would not be able to have coverage because of this.”

“I am not the only woman in our state that has faced that horrible circumstance,” Whitmer went on. “I am not enjoying talking about it. It’s something I’ve hidden for a long time, but I think you need to see the face of the women that you are impacting by this vote today.”

[embedded content]

Despite Whitmer’s emotional speech, the measure passed. “I bared my soul to the world and it didn’t make a single difference in the vote,” Whitmer told me on the way to a rally with Bernie Sanders in Ann Arbor this month. “I went to bed incredibly depressed that night.”

But soon, she said, women and men around the state began calling and emailing her office, and posting on Facebook, to tell their own stories.

“We were just overwhelmed by the enormous supportive reaction,” she said. “I didn’t change that vote that day, but I added my voice to a conversation that was long overdue.”

The moment in some ways anticipated the spread of the #MeToo movement, to which Whitmer contributed last year with a video she posted on Facebook.

“I shared my story of sexual assault during a tough debate at the Capitol,” she says in the video. “But I did it because women’s voices weren’t being heard.”

Whitmer has also been outspoken about the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. On the day Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh had assaulted her when both were in high school, Whitmer tweeted simply, “I believe Dr. Ford.”

“Anyone who’s a survivor knows it’s a lifelong scar you carry,” Whitmer told me. “It’s painful to see another woman discounted,” she added, “but it’s also something that added more energy to the work that I’m doing as a candidate.”

There was a time when talking about something like sexual assault was considered dangerous for female candidates.

“For women historically, the challenge has been that the expectations of candidates and officeholders have aligned more often with masculine traits and masculine areas of expertise,” said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University and co-author of the book A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters.

“I think that’s changing this year,” she said. “Women are really pushing the boundaries.”

Women candidates in this election cycle are pioneering a new way of running for office, Maeve Coyle, deputy director of campaign communications for Emily’s List, which supports pro-choice Democratic women and has endorsed Whitmer, told me.

“They’re not shying away from their personal stories, and they’re not following any specific formula to what a candidate should or shouldn’t look like,” Coyle said. “We have candidates all across the country who are kind of just throwing the playbook out of the window.”

That doesn’t mean they’re saying voters should cast their ballots based on gender alone. Rather, Dittmar explained, women candidates like Whitmer are saying, “gender is among the value-added pieces of me that I bring. It’s not just being a woman, it’s living my life as a woman and all of the experiences that brings.”

Whitmer isn’t the only Michigan candidate taking this approach. For Mari Manoogian, a former State Department employee and Birmingham native running for the state House of Representatives there, gender is just one factor she believes gives her a unique perspective on her state’s problems.

Michigan State House of Representatives candidate Mari Manoogian in Birmingham, Michigan, on October 19, 2018. Anna North/Vox

The issues facing Michigan, from education to health care to the environment, would benefit from fresh ideas, and one way to introduce those, Manoogian says, “would be having a different kind of representation, whether that’s young people, or women, or homegrown people.”

“That’s, to me, why I think it’s really important to me to have diverse leadership,” she said.

For McMorrow, a 32-year-old industrial designer who’s worked for Mazda and Mattel, 2016 was a wake-up call that more women needed to get involved in politics. “It wasn’t just that Trump got elected, it’s that we had somebody who was openly bragging about sexual assault get elected.”

“That was really a push that got a lot of people in,” she said, speaking of the unprecedented numbers of women running for office in the wake of the 2016 election. “But now I think the reasons we’ve all stayed in and found success have been very different.”

She believes she brings something new to the table in Michigan, but it’s as much about her background as her gender. “My skill set as an industrial designer and the way that I think about solving problems is gravely missing from our political process,” she said.

Manoogian, McMorrow, and Whitmer are spending plenty of time talking with voters about issues that cut across gender. All have promised to work to fix the state’s pothole-ridden roads. All have pledged to help clean up the water — the state, still reeling from the Flint water crisis, now faces another potential threat to citizens’ health as toxic chemicals called PFAS have been found in water consumed by more than 1.5 million residents.

“Who the governor is impacts our lives every single day, from when we turn on the tap water and brush our teeth, to when we drive our roads to take our kids to school, to the schools that they attend,” Whitmer said in a speech at the Arab American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn on October 19.

Polls suggest that, at least in Michigan, women candidates’ pitches are working on voters. Though her margin has shrunk in some polls, Whitmer is favored to beat her Republican opponent, Bill Schuette, who has the endorsement of President Trump.

Michigan, where Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is departing due to term limits, was one of the top states targeted for pickup this year by the Democratic Governors’ Association. Snyder is unpopular because of his handling of the crisis in Flint, and voters may be soured on Republicans as a result. But the Democrats also like their chances due to Whitmer’s strengths as a candidate.

“You’ve got to run the campaign that is authentic to you,” said David Turner, deputy communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. “She is clearly comfortable in her own skin, she knows exactly why she’s running, who she’s running for, and what she’s going to do to help them.”

Meanwhile, Democrats hope to gain control of the Michigan House of Representatives, and believe they may have a shot at the state Senate as well — and women candidates are a big reason why. Democrats are running a woman candidate in 10 of the top 13 target races in the House, according to the Detroit News, and in seven of the nine top races in the Senate. Among these key races are Manoogian’s, against Republican David Wolkinson for an open Republican seat, and McMorrow’s, against Republican incumbent Marty Knollenberg.

Michigan State House of Representatives candidate Mari Manoogian, left, and Michigan State Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow, right, canvassing in Birmingham, Michigan, on October 19, 2018. Anna North/Vox

In some cases, Democratic women have been able to appeal to groups and voters across the aisle. Republican Women for Progress, a PAC started by Republican women who supported Clinton in the 2016 election, has endorsed two Democratic women from Michigan, Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin, for Congress. The endorsement “was inspired by us talking to Republican women in these districts where they said there was just no way that they could vote for the Republican,” Meghan Milloy, co-founder of Republican Women for Progress, told the Detroit Metro Times.

“We think the best thing that we can do for the party and for the country right now is to make sure there are good women — Democrat or Republican — that are elected to office and who can serve as a check on this administration and on the president,” she added.

It’s not just Michigan; around the Rust Belt and the Midwest, Democrats are betting on women to win. In Minnesota, Ilhan Omar is favored to become one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. In Pennsylvania, a record eight women, seven of them Democrats, are running for congressional seats. In Ohio, women make up 44 of 99 Democratic candidates for the state House of Representatives, and seven of 17 candidates for state Senate. Six of them recently got together to form Ohio Women Lead, a group that has produced a video ad and is working on get out the vote efforts.

“In prior elections, women may have been less likely to talk on the campaign trail about what it’s like to be a mom and balance family and work,” Rep. Kristin Boggs, who is leading the group, told the Columbus Dispatch. “With these candidates, our families have been such a motivating factor about why they’ve gotten into the election. They are actively talking about it, using it to connect with other women who are just as frustrated with the state of affairs.”

Meanwhile, across the country, women likely voters are favoring Democrats at even higher rates than usual. In a September survey, women in Michigan supported Democrats by more than 20 percentage points.

Historically, women tend to vote their party, not their gender, Dittmar said. However, there is evidence that having a woman on the ballot can increase women’s enthusiasm and engagement in the election, if they share her party, she added. “I do think that we are seeing that this year.”

One woman who’s planning on voting for a Democratic woman is Smith, the Michigan business coach, who said, “Gretchen has my vote big-time.”

“I’m not going to just go vote because all women are running,” she explained. “It takes the right women.”

Other Michigan voters echoed her views.

“I think whatever gender that supports the community, that is the gender we should go with, whether woman or man,” Vann Glover told me as she shopped at Detroit’s outdoor Eastern Market on October 20.

“But it’s always good to see a woman take the job,” she added. “I think we’re a little more sensitive to people and their needs.”

A loyal Democrat, Glover said she planned to support Whitmer in November.

Jeanne Royal, meanwhile, was still doing her research for the midterm election, she told me at Eastern Market. But she was planning to vote this year for the first time ever.

“I used to have a view that my vote doesn’t matter. But I see how a couple little votes didn’t matter and we got stuck with — you know,” she said, laughing.

Royal was excited to see a potential “year of the woman” this year.

“I like that, that’s awesome,” she told me, pumping her fist in approval. “Women have been oppressed throughout civilization,” she said. “It’s good to see that my species is rising.”

In the wake of the 2016 election, some analysts assumed that beating Republicans would require copying Trump’s appeal to white working-class masculinity. But Trump didn’t just run as a macho man. He also ran as a change candidate — a business executive and TV star who pledged to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Two years later, the candidates best placed to run on change may be not men, but women.

It’s not just women who think so. McMorrow said one male voter recently told her, “I voted for Trump because he’s different, and I’m going to vote for you because you’re different.”

Hillary Clinton failed to carry Michigan for a number of reasons, some of them unknowable. There was a decades-long history of sexist news coverage that helped convince American voters she was “unlikeable.” There were her own admitted shortcomings as a politician. There was her failure to spend much time in the state in the general election campaign.

But Clinton, despite her historic status as the first woman major-party nominee, also looked to many voters like business as usual — the wife of a former president, she struggled to win over those who opposed his policies. And when Trump was caught on tape bragging about his ability to grab women “by the pussy,” he was able to bring up Bill Clinton’s allegations of sexual assault, even bringing some of Clinton’s accusers to a debate.

Whitmer has made her career in state government and is familiar to many voters. Still, she, McMorrow, and Manoogian likely represent more of a departure than Clinton ever could — especially now, when women are watching the fallout from Trump’s election.

This year, Dittmar said, “You’re seeing women say, I can’t afford to sit on the sidelines because of what is happening in politics.” That’s a different environment than the one that prevailed in 2016 — and it might produce a different result.

Whitmer, McMorrow, Manoogian and others aren’t campaigning solely on their gender, or on opposition to Trump, or on #MeToo. But they are campaigning on offering voters something different than what’s gone before.

Mari Manoogian at her campaign headquarters on October 19, 2018. Anna North/Vox

“When I think about Mallory or I think about this phenomenal ticket that’s come together,” Whitmer told me, “we all got here not because we had this master plan, but because we were tired of the status quo.”

“We all came from different directions,” she said, “but I think the similarities are, we grit our teeth and do the work.”

Original Source -> Trump won the Rust Belt with macho. These women hope to win with change.

via The Conservative Brief

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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Her name is right there in the yearbook: Renate.

It appears least 14 times throughout the 1983 yearbook of Georgetown Preparatory School, the alma mater of embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, by now accused of three separate instances of sexual assault and misconduct as a young man. But none of those 14 repetitions of Renate’s name is located beneath a picture of her.

Instead, it is by the photographs of boys. By Kavanaugh’s. By other boys’. By a group photo of nine football players identifying them, and Kavanaugh, as “Renate Alumni.” As men who, according to some of Kavanaugh’s high school classmates, had “conquered” Renate.

Renate Schroeder — who now goes by her married name, Renate Dolphin — didn’t even go to Georgetown Prep, an all-boys Catholic high school. She was a student at a girls’ school nearby, as the New York Times reported in revealing the yearbook entries. She denies ever having any sexual or romantic connection with Kavanaugh. (Kavanaugh, through a representative, has said the two shared a “brief kiss,” which Dolphin also denies.)

The story of the “Renate Alumni” is the story of a group of men whose treatment of women may have been not just cruel but criminal. Some of those same men, including Kavanaugh, were accused on Wednesday of facilitating “gang rape” of girls at high school parties by another acquaintance of theirs, Julie Swetnick, who went to a different high school. (Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegations, calling them “ridiculous.”)

But the case of Renate Schroeder Dolphin is nevertheless an illustrative one, precisely because she says little or no physical contact with the boys occurred. Rather, her name seems to have become a punchline: an inside joke for a group of men whose bonds with one another were fostered by her ritual humiliation. Whether Dolphin was involved with any of these boys or not was immaterial. The self-proclaimed “Renate Alumni” quite literally constructed their identity around her.

Dolphin says she was not assaulted. But her story bears a strong resemblance to that of Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who alleges that an excessively inebriated Kavanaugh thrust his naked penis in her face during a college drinking game at a dorm room gathering (Kavanaugh also denies this event took place).

As Ramirez and her former classmates alike told the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer, Ramirez said she was frequently targeted for bullying and humiliation by her male Yale classmates. Her story, too, bears a strong resemblance to that of Swetnick, who describes a culture of alcohol-fueled high school parties in which Kavanaugh and his friends would ritualistically get girls drunk so that they could be sexually assaulted.

In Dolphin’s, Ramirez’s, and Swetnick’s accounts, it does not appear that the abuse each woman says she experienced was directed primarily by a desire for sexual gratification. Indeed, per Ramirez’s account, it hardly seems like Kavanaugh thought about her at all. Instead, these women say they were ritually humiliated and degraded in order to promote fraternal bonds between young men.

If these women’s allegations are true, Kavanaugh of course bears full responsibility for them. But the revelations of his alleged high school and collegiate acts of ritualized degradation of women speak to a much wider and more insidious societal issue: the way homosocial male bonding is so often predicated on a woman’s humiliation.

From the “Renate Alumni” to the notorious all-male Yale secret society Truth and Courage (known on campus as “Tit and Clit”), of which Kavanaugh was reportedly a member, what is most remarkable about his adolescence and early adulthood is how unremarkable it is. The objectification and shaming of a woman is an essential part of the way men bond with one another — and create their identities — in our society.

One of the most striking accounts of the way women are used as subjects of humiliation to shore up male relationships comes from the late queer theorist Eve Sedgwick. In her influential 1985 book Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, considered one of the foundational texts in queer theory, Sedgwick posits that the cultural history of English literature has always been one of what she calls “triangulation.”

Her argument is nuanced and complex, but at its core is the way in which men use women to define themselves against other men. Unable to reconcile societally unacceptable feelings of what Sedgwick calls “homosociality” — strong but not necessarily sexual affinities men have for other men — with a culture that is overly preoccupied in shaming potential homosexuality, men end up using women as a kind of proxy for their feelings about one another. Sedgwick argues that men, desperate to prove their heterosexuality but trapped in a culture that does not allow them to engage emotionally or authentically with one another, use women as “conduits”: safe outlets for them to express their desire for one another.

This doesn’t necessarily mean sexual humiliation. A man’s straightforward romantic pursuit of a woman could, in Sedgwick’s model, double as a kind of “performance” for his male peers, allowing him to attain status as a man. But the fundamental objectification of the woman involved — she does not exist for herself, but for the men around her — remains the same. Sexualization and humiliation become the natural endpoints of a trend of dehumanization.

In this context, the sexualization and humiliation of women becomes about more than just experiencing power over those women. Instead, it becomes the means by which men construct their own identities vis-à-vis one another. In the case of Renate Schroeder Dolphin, that construction became literal. Her name, her identity, and her (perceived) sexuality became the thing that linked the football players of Georgetown Prep together.

Social science bears out the way female humiliation is at the heart of homosocial bonding. In 2008, sociologist Michael Flood, a researcher at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health, and Society at La Trobe University, did a qualitative study of the sexual identity of boys ages 18 to 26 in Canberra. He found that “sexual activity is a key path to masculine status, and other men are the audience, always imagined and sometimes real, for one’s sexual activities.”

Several of the young men Flood interviewed in depth for the study had engaged in what Flood calls “ritualized sexual humiliation.” Two separate research subjects, members of the same football league, detailed having participated in a party game called “Rodeo,” in which a group of male friends selected one of their number, at random, to get the most overweight woman he could find as drunk as possible before bringing her back to a hotel room. Once there, the selected man tied her with pantyhose to the bed, then summoned his companions before shouting “Rodeo” and jumping on her back, trying to stay on top of her for as long as possible as she struggled. Another boy described having gotten a woman drunk and allowing his companions to assault her with golf balls.

Flood characterizes these disturbing accounts as primarily — in the minds of these rituals’ participants — about the homosocial experience: They’re a night out with the boys, an example of masculine teamwork. He concludes that “sex with women is a direct medium of male bonding, and men’s narratives of their sexual and gender relations are offered to male audiences in storytelling cultures generated in part by homosociality.”

In a follow-up statement he shared with Vox, Flood said:

For men in male-dominated contexts like the military, male-male relations have a very powerful influence on their sexual and social relations with women. For some men, male-male relations take priority over male-female non-sexual relations … and platonic friendships with women are dangerously feminising and rare if not impossible. This creates the bizarre situation where males who have female friends risk being seen as ‘gay.’ Sex with women … is a key path to status among male peers. And telling stories and boasting about sexual exploits is part of male-male peer cultures.”

Sometimes, Flood said, that homosocial dynamic lends itself to sexual assault, humiliation, and rape in the name of male bonding. “Male bonding is part and parcel of some men’s violence against women. For example, the cultures and collective rituals of male bonding among closely knit male fraternities and male athletes on college campuses foster tolerance toward or even perpetration of sexual assault against women. Rape is more likely in fraternities that practice greater gender segregation. … Rape may be both a means to and an expression of male bonding, especially when it’s perpetrated by groups of males.”

Flood’s findings are far from isolated. From the ill-fated prom night of Stephen King’s Carrie to the modern-day trend of “pigging” (leading an “ugly” woman to believe she is desirable), female sexual humiliation is an entrenched part of our cultural understanding of how young men bond.

Stories like Dolphin’s and Ramirez’s, in particular, could happen anywhere. But it’s worth examining how the culture of elite institutions like Georgetown Prep and Yale intensifies both the homosocial behavior and female ritual humiliation.

Writing about British all-male prep schools — the ancestors of both Georgetown Prep and Yale — the author and journalist Robert Verkaik argues that the very nature of those institutions is designed to promote intense homosocial bonding. Through rigid hierarchies and cultures of “hazing” and “bullying,” elite institutions (particularly all-male ones) serve to instill “unshakeable confidence” in their students, even as they foster an equally unshakable sense of tribal loyalty.

The upper classes preserve their power, Verkaik says, precisely because their formative institutions instill in them the very qualities necessary to “protect one’s own.” While Verkaik’s accounts of sexual humiliation center on male-on-male hazing, his understanding of the way ritualized, eroticized degradation is vital to “male bonding,” and to the formation, in turn, of a class of self-protective, privileged male elite, could just as easily apply to the so-called “Renate Alumni.”

Certainly, elite secret societies like “Tit and Clit,” as well as Kavanaugh’s fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, are likewise legendary for having fostered similarly loyal bonds among members — bonds that critics, likewise, say were built on sexually aggressive and humiliating behavior. Former Yale students report a culture of DKE students being “loud, entitled, pushy, and creepy,” and breaking into women’s rooms to steal underwear to display as part of a fraternity “flag.” And the violations don’t stop there. At least 10 Yale women have accused DKE members of sexual misconduct between 2014 and 2017.

The administration of Georgetown Prep has actively spoken out against these kinds of toxic dynamics. In an open letter shared with members of the community, Georgetown Prep’s principal, Jesuit Father James Van Dyke, challenged students and alumni to “think deeply and long about what it means to be ‘men for others,’ what the vaunted Prep ‘brotherhood’ is really about.”

The head of another Jesuit boys’ school, Fordham Prep’s Christopher J. Devron, S.J., also highlighted the importance of challenging the homosocial assumptions of masculinity embedded in institutions like these. In an article for the Jesuit America Magazine, Devron argued for the importance of fostering empathy and emotional openness among the boys in his school. “I believe God’s Spirit helps our students see and know the dignity that resides within each person,” he wrote. “What a powerful way to inoculate young men against the poison of toxic masculinity.”

We may never know what happened between Kavanaugh and Ramirez, Kavanaugh and Swetnick, or Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh pinned her down and tried to force himself on her at a high school party. We do, however, know that Kavanaugh and his classmates were part of a culture in which male identity and ritualized exertions of sexual power went hand in hand.

An ex-girlfriend of Mark Judge — a friend of Kavanaugh’s, who Ford says was in the room at the time of the alleged assault — said that Judge told her he’d participated in “trains” in which he and his friends took turns having sex with a drunk woman. Even more troublingly, she rsaid he did not seem to think such an action violated the woman’s consent. (Judge denies both having engaged in such actions and telling his ex-girlfriend about them. On Fox News earlier this week, Kavanaugh said he remained a virgin for years after college.)

Many of Kavanaugh’s defenders, from Rod Dreher to Bari Weiss, have trotted out the hoary “boys will be boys” defense. But what might be most striking about the story of Renate Schroeder Dolphin is that it reveals the dark societal heart of what that means. All too often, being “boys” — that is, forging a masculine identity — means the sexual humiliation and degradation of women, for the benefit of an audience of other men. It’s time for a better definition.

Original Source -> Brett Kavanaugh and the hidden cost of male bonding

via The Conservative Brief

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