#also mention of rape in the linked article

[senso1954]

James Ellroy as a boy, photo taken moments after learning about his mother Jean's murder.

I cut my mother down to sound-bite size and packaged her wholesale. I determined the cause of my ruthlessness years later. She owned me. Her claim rankled. I wanted to portray myself as a man above all Oedipal constraints. I had created a fictional Elizabeth Short to usurp my mother’s claim and upstage her. It worked in the novel. It sold a great many books. It left Jean Hilliker still dead on that roadside, unblessed with love.

James Ellroy, "My Mother and the Dahlia" Afterword to The Black Dahlia

[evidence-based-activism]

Hi! I'm rather sceptical of this article which claims that more porn = less rape and lists several studies (at the bottom of the page) as the author doesn't really bother to explain them properly, so I was hoping you could.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault

@nznnm I re-sent your submission as an ask, due to formatting issues!

You were correct to be skeptical! Porn does not result in less rape.

The linked article cites seven sources [1-7].

Five of the seven studies [2-6] were all conducted prior to 2000, so, even if they did support the supposition that pornography leads to less rape (and they don't), they would not be representative of the effects of modern, mainstream, free, internet pornography.

These studies by Diamond [1, 2, 3] and Kutchinsky [5, 6] all rely on the same methodological paradigm: aggregate-level national analysis. They essentially examine how changes in pornography use rates (e.g., as a result of a legal change) is related to reported rape rates for a nation (i.e., in aggregate) over a period of time. There are several issues with this type of analysis, highlighted by this article [8]. For example, they indicate "one of the more serious problems with aggregate data used in pornography research results from the inappropriate transfer of aggregate results toward individualistic explanations", but I also want to highlight the issue with relying on reported sex crimes (e.g., did the rate of rape really decrease/not change or did misogynistic beliefs become more prevalent - as a cause or effect of the aforementioned legal change - resulting in a lower reporting rate). The mentioned paper [8] explicitly addresses studies [1, 3, 5, 6] and study [2] is just review of those four. In addition, YourBrainOnPorn has an article addressing this same point, which may be more accessible for laymen [9]. In short, this methodology cannot reliably determine a relationship between rape and pornography.

Goldstein's 1971 study [4] was a retrospective study examining pornography use between "deviants" (a group that included homosexual men) and non-"deviants", concluding non-"deviants" used more pornography. However, this was a single, small study conducted prior to the internet. More importantly, the retrospective design presents significant possible problems, particularly for "sensitive" topics [10]. For example, did the pedophiles really never see pornography, or are they less likely to remember or report having seen it? Many more recent studies have disputed this result; I mention some of them in this post and this post and there are many more in a link below.

The final source [7] doesn't address rape rates at all; it concerns "closeness with others". I'm a lot less concerned with pornography use’s effects on male users, and more a lot more concerned with its effects on the female performers and women in society. That being said, YourBrainOnPorn has collected a resource pages with studies linking porn use to "sexual dysfunctions and poorer sexual and relationship satisfaction" (currently with more than 130 studies) [11] and "poorer mental-emotional health & poorer cognitive outcomes" (currently with more than 100 studies) [12].

In addition to all of this, YourBrainOnPorn has collected a resource page "linking porn use to sexual offending, sexual aggression, and sexual coercion" (currently with more than 110 studies) [13].

I want to highlight the following:

This review [14] found "reliable associations between frequent pornography use and sexually aggressive behaviors, particularly for violent pornography and/or for men at high risk for sexual aggression"

This meta-analysis [15] on 46 studies with over 12,000 people found (pre-internet) found moderate to strong effect sizes of pornography on aggression, violent behavior, and misogynistic beliefs.

This 2010 meta-analysis [16] found an "overall significant positive association between pornography use and attitudes supporting violence against women in nonexperimental studies". This was done to accompany their meta-analysis on experimental (laboratory) studies [17] that showed "consumption of material depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggressive behavior, and that media depictions of violent sexual activity generates more aggression than those of nonviolent sexual activity".

This 2015 meta-analysis [18] examined "2 studies from 7 different countries" of more than 20,000 people and found pornography use was "associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females, and in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies".

This 2017 review [19] found pornography is associated with more adolescent dating and sexual violence perpetration and victimization.

All in all, the linked article cherry picked (i.e., they picked the few studies that supported their view while ignoring the many more than did not) studies using an unreliable and controversial methodology.

Given the highly politicized and contentions nature of this topic, we are never going to have a consensus in research; instead we need to rely on a "preponderance of evidence" approach, noting that pornography use is linked to sexual aggression in the majority (and in more high quality) studies.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

References under the cut:

Diamond, M. et al. “Pornography and Sex Crimes in the Czech Republic,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2011) 40:1037

Diamond, M. “The Effects of Pornography: An International Perspective,” in Pornography 101: Eroticism, Sexuality, and the First Amendment, edited by J. Elias et al. Prometheus Press, Amherst, NY, 1999.

Diamond, M. and A. Uchiyama. “Pornography, Rape, and Sex Crimes in Japan,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (1999) 22:1.

Goldstein, M. et al. “Experience with Pornography: Rapists, Pedophiles, Homosexuals, Transsexuals, and Controls,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (1971) 1:1.

Kutchinsky, B. Pornography and Rape: Theory and Practice? Evidence from crime Data in Four Countries, Where Pornography is Easily Available,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry (1991) 14:47.

Kutchinsky, B. “The Effect of Easy Availability of Pornography on the Incidence of Sex Crimes: The Danish Experience,” Journal of Social Issues (1973) 29:163.

Poipovic, M. “Pornography Use and Closeness with Others in Men,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2011) 40:449

Kingston, Drew A., and Neil M. Malamuth. "Problems with aggregate data and the importance of individual differences in the study of pornography and sexual aggression: Comment on Diamond, Jozifkova, and Weiss (2010)." Archives of sexual behavior 40 (2011): 1045-1048.

“Debunking the Realyourbrainonporn (Scienceofarousal.Com) ‘Sex Offender Section’: The Actual State of the Research on Porn Use and Sexual Aggression, Coercion & Violence.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/critiques-of-questionable-debunking-propaganda-pieces/debunking-realyourbrainonporn-pornographyresearch-com-sex-offender-section/.

Tofthagen C. Threats to validity in retrospective studies. J Adv Pract Oncol. 2012 May;3(3):181-3. PMID: 25031944; PMCID: PMC4093311.

“Studies Linking Porn Use or Porn/Sex Addiction to Sexual Dysfunctions and Poorer Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/porn-use-sex-addiction-studies/studies-linking-porn-use-or-porn-sex-addiction-to-sexual-dysfunctions-and-poorer-sexual-and-relationship-satisfaction/.

“Studies Linking Porn Use to Poorer Mental-Emotional Health & Poorer Cognitive Outcomes.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/porn-use-sex-addiction-studies/studies-linking-porn-use-to-poorer-mental-emotional-health-poorer-cognitive-outcomes/.

“Studies Linking Porn Use to Sexual Offending, Sexual Aggression, and Sexual Coercion.” Your Brain On Porn, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/critiques-of-questionable-debunking-propaganda-pieces/studies-linking-porn-use-to-sexual-offending-sexual-aggression-and-sexual-coercion/.

Malamuth NM, Addison T, Koss M. Pornography and sexual aggression: are there reliable effects and can we understand them? Annu Rev Sex Res. 2000;11:26-91. PMID: 11351835.

Oddone-Paolucci, Elizabeth, Mark Genuis, and Claudio Violato. "A meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of pornography." The changing family and child development. Routledge, 2017. 48-59.

Hald GM, Malamuth NM, Yuen C. Pornography and attitudes supporting violence against women: revisiting the relationship in nonexperimental studies. Aggress Behav. 2010 Jan-Feb;36(1):14-20. doi: 10.1002/ab.20328. PMID: 19862768.

Allen, Mike, D. A. V. E. D'alessio, and Keri Brezgel. "A meta‐analysis summarizing the effects of pornography II aggression after exposure." Human communication research 22.2 (1995): 258-283.

Wright, Paul J., Robert S. Tokunaga, and Ashley Kraus. "A meta-analysis of pornography consumption and actual acts of sexual aggression in general population studies." Journal of Communication 66.1 (2016): 183-205.

Rodenhizer KAE, Edwards KM. The Impacts of Sexual Media Exposure on Adolescent and Emerging Adults' Dating and Sexual Violence Attitudes and Behaviors: A Critical Review of the Literature. Trauma Violence Abuse. 2019 Oct;20(4):439-452. doi: 10.1177/1524838017717745. Epub 2017 Jul 13. PMID: 29333966.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

The IDF estimates, maybe based on a baby bottle that was found where hostages are known to have been held, in the basement of the Rantisi hospital in Gaza, that a woman who was kidnapped while pregnant, has given birth in captivity. That makes her child the youngest hostage, at the age of a few days at most.

While our kids and babies are being held hostage in dark basements and tunnels, Israel is offering Gazans medical assistance for their kids. At this link you can listen to a subtitled conversation (the article is in Hebrew, just scroll to the first embedded vid), where an IDF officer is offering the Shifa hospital manager to place at the entrance to the building 37 incubators and 4 respirators for the kids and babies. The officer also vows to the manager to help protect as much as possible the patients, wards and staff in the hospital. During the conversation, the offer is accepted, but the IDF says later it was rejected. As I can't see who would outrank the hospital manager, I'm guessing the "No" came from Hamas.

Rockets continue to be fired into Israel. Today, a rocket barrage at Tel Aviv, at a kids playground, left one person seriously wounded, and two moderately.

Thank you so much to the Israeli Nonnie who sent me this vid. Yes, that is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned in my update yesterday, this is Hamas attacking Palestinians in order to take over this aid truck and get all of the food for themselves (the relevant footage starts 11 seconds in):

Jeremy Corbyn, the man who could have been the British Prime Minister, and who British Jews called out on antisemitism, was interviewed by Piers Morgan. He was asked 15 (arguably 16) times to answer the question whether Hamas is a terrorist group, but refused to give a reply.

I was listening to this interview with Ella Keinan (it's in Hebrew), an Israeli travel vlogger, who has started posting about the Israeli POV since Oct 8. She didn't say anything I didn't know, but I thought the way she phrased things was powerful, so allow me to translate:

They created a brand called Free Palestine, which is not actually freeing the Palestinians and giving them what they want, but under this brand it's possible to do anything nowadays, it's possible to rape, it's possible to slaughter, it's possible to kidnap, it's possible to abuse, to kill, it's possible to hurt and kill Jews in LA, it's possible to attack them at universities, and you'll still be applauded. Meaning, you'll still be popular. That's how powerful this brand is.

Meanwhile, Israel's foreign diplomacy has officially been shut down due to a lack of budget. A lot of government offices are being shut down, and their budget is being re-directed to help the evacuated, the families of the murdered, the injured, financially supporting people whose businesses have collapsed, compensating those whose homes were destroyed by Palestinian rockets. So when you hear people dismissing regular Israelis' posts as paid propaganda by the Israeli government... what a fucking joke, Israel can't even currently pay professionals in this field, let alone regular people.

This is 19 years old Noa Marziano.

Yesterday, Hamas published a vid of her as a hostage. The Israeli media refused to cooperate with the psychological warfare, no one published it. Today, the IDF was able to confirm that Noa was murdered in captivity.

This is 12 years old Liel Hetzroni.

Her mother Shira, after gaving birth to her and her twin brother, suffered brain damage, and couldn't take care of her kids, so they were raised by their grandparents. Liel's grandfather and brother's bodies were already found. Today, after having been missing for 38 days, Liel's death was also pronounced.

This is 75 years old Vivien Silver.

She was a peace activists. Among other things, she used to volunteer her time driving Gazans to medical treatments in Israel. She was thought to be kidnapped in Gaza, but today her body was identified.

May their memories be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[fanhackers]

Honoring Our Foresmutters: Joanna Russ

Inspired to post today by the recent New York Times article on Joanna Russ, “Joanna Russ Showed Us the Future: Female, Queer but Far From Perfect,” which promotes an exciting new collection of her work by the Library of America.  Joanna Russ was a fan and a fanfiction writer well as, arguably, the literal founder of the field of fan studies. While Russ has been referenced or namechecked many times in the Fanhackers blog over the years (here and here, for example), I don’t think we’ve ever specifically shouted out her field-founding 1985 essay “Pornography By Women For Women, With Love.”  (Is there an important fan studies essay before this one? Perhaps Ien Ang’s 1985 work on Dallas fans? Janice Radway’s 1984 Reading the Romance? Lamb and Veith? Lichtenberg, Marshak, and Winstons’s 1975 landmark Star Trek Lives? Maybe that one. But Russ is pretty much the first to document and defend modern slash fandom as we know it (which is one of the reasons the NYT article links to the Archive of Our Own.)   

Russ says a lot of things in this essay about Star Trek slash, what it is and how it works, and how slash serves as a sexual fantasy for women. (She also says some pretty fascinating things about not just female rape fantasy, but also about male rape fantasy: there’s a lot of sympathy here for men’s sexual fantasy and empathy for the way men are thwarted under patriarchy as well.)  But I think my favorite thing in the essay is the way Russ is willing to own her feels:

I hope I haven't offended anyone by calling K/S "sexual fantasy." If it weren't, I wouldn't pay any attention to it. I love the stuff, I love the way it turns me on, and I love its attempt to establish a very radical androgyny in its characters. So many feminist creations of Amazons and Goddess-worshippers and so on simply don't work-most are very thin–but K/S works, if you know and like Star Trek, and (as I mentioned) it is the only sexual fantasy by women for women that's produced without the control or interposition of censorship by commercial booksellers or the interposition of political intent by writers or editors. It's also a labor of love for the women involved, since it is (and must be, because of the possibility of lawsuit) non-profit. I find it raw, blatantly female, and very valuable and exciting.

She ends the essay preparing to go back to the story she is writing!

And now, if you will excuse me, I must go back to my ancient Vulcan castle with the carved bedposts where I have left my two characters, Guess Who and Guess Which, in a very dramatic and painful situation. In fact, I left Spock preparing to beat Kirk, whom he has bought as a slave in an alternate universe in which violent Vulcan (Spock's planet) never reformed. Of course the point of the whole scene is that Spock can't bear to do any such thing because he is madly in love with Kirk. So he smites his forehead with his hand (or some similar gesture) and rushes out to agonize. Meanwhile Kirk (who's of course in love with Spock) agonizes too, but in the opposite direction, so to speak.  They will do this for a long as I can contrive, and then they will make great music together, also as long as I can stretch the scene out. Yum. And so on.

That “Yum,” in print, in 1985, is everything! 

–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

[antiproshipconfessions]

TW: Pedophilia mention (but it's in the form of misinformation getting spread about age regression), slavery mention, rape, ableism, gaslighting

So glad a blog like this exists.

I've gotten plenty of bad experiences with proshippers. One of them was identifying themselves as an anti-anti, but for some contrived reasons, they don't allow any proshippers to follow them, was even ok with one person who's a proshipper themselves to get taken down (due to the individual not tagging stuff properly, is a ban-evader, the rabbit hole for that person got deeper and deeper mostly because they admit to ban-evading all the time since they get mass reported. Their white knights fucking harassed the hell out of me by indirectly mocking my dni and even dragged my mutuals into it, most don't even know who tf this proshipper is. It's over making a doc on the person. I had to get my username changed due to this so they can't think of trying to falsely report me and potentially be why my account is banned on here.)

They say they're neutral about the discourse but then here's where I'm doubting their stance on that: they kept excusing people who are proshippers that it's ok to ship abusive ships just because they had an abusive childhood, even though they themselves don't condone toxic/abusive ships and minor x adult. (This part imo doesn't make sense, since they blocked people who use age regression as a coping mechanism and literally believes people who use it is the same as behaving like a pedophile along with it being a kink. I hate how they asked me in DMs to reassure them they aren't ableist for shaming people for using that as a coping mechanism.)

This person was a former mutual of mine because they genuinely believed that I'm acting like a rabid anti all because I answered their questions about what ships I hated to them (cuz one was a real historical figure getting shipped with their slave owner, the disgusting thing about it is that there's a au fic about it that had the guy get what he wanted and the author was 100% romanticizing rape and slavery. They also refused to add a warning and people legit saw it as a love story when it's not), I vent/rant on my blog frequently (I've been at least getting outside help for this, dw).

The anti proshipping stuff hadn't been a reason why they blocked me, it was over something they think is "controversial": I had stuff stating "narcissistic abuse believers dni" in my pinned post and "narcissistic abuse isn't real" in reblogs of people's posts. They think having that shit is "proof" someone's admitting to being a person with NPD. They made that callout post on me for being someone who thinks it's unfair to be ableist towards people with PDs for the majority of it besides claiming I'm a rabid anti (again, makes no sense cuz they linked an article that says shipping discourse is chronically online but doesn't check to read the whole thing through to realize the article isn't siding with an anti-anti like them. They are siding with antis the whole time.).

Really am surprised they still got a following (one thing that made me go yikes is how they got a mutual they recently made that thinks like them. These people got a callout for being blatantly ableist towards people with PDs, evidently obvious with how they think people aren't human beings if they got NPD) despite the shit they put me through, I had to be off of this site for a mental health break around in August-September because it really hurt that they accused me of having NPD, I genuinely trusted them and they in return stabbed me in the back.

Other proshippers I've got don't check my pinned post to realize I'm not on their side to then follow me and get me blocked (hell, even had one like my post then do the usual: blocking time).

With that being said, these are why I refuse to be a proshipper and could you blame me for not being one?

i wanna follow you, and if you need to you can vent/rant in my dms. I'm really, really sorry this happened to you

[threadfall]

Pern Resources

This is an ongoing collection of links* that should cover a whole range of bits and pieces relating to Dragonriders of Pern and Anne McCaffrey – from interviews to interesting articles!

* I check these regularly, but I cannot vouch for if the domains still exist and, if not, what is currently on them. A lot of resources relating to Pern are from the 90s/early 2000s and liable to be replaced by random hosting spam. EDIT: walks-the-ages has added some excellent comments about the Wayback Machine! (And many thanks for backing the pages up on it.)

World Building – Canon

Dragon Lover's Guide to Pern, by Jody Lynn Nye – Link

Hosted by peoplepern.narod.ru, this website is in Russian but has a full English digitised DLG complete with pictures.

All the Songs of Pern – Link

Song Lyrics and Poetry – Link

Music From the World of Anne McCaffrey's Pern by Tania Opland and Mike Freeman – Link

It's worth noting that while the songbooks and CDs are available to buy, all the music is also available through Spotify.

Curses, Oaths, and Maledicta – Links

Pernese Sayings/Curses from Pern Etc. – Links

Anti Fandom Wiki – Link

World Building – 'Fanon'

News From Bree – Multiple links below!

Threadfall Patterns – Link Pern Demographics – Link Can Menolly Outrun Thread? – Link Dragon Demographics – Link Bargaining for Bubbly Pies – Link Originally a Tolkien fanzine between 1970-1988, the site is now a resource that covers multiple topics of interest to Hartley Patterson.

On Impression, by Faye Upton – Link

A multi-part essay on Upton's thoughts about how Impression does/should work, and its relation to the canon of the fanwork Dragonchoice.

Kadanzar Weyr Handbook – Link

While no longer active (since 2013 as of 2024), Kadanzar has multiple articles talking in depth about the 'canon' of their site, which are interesting reads for how Pern may have functioned. The link is specifically to a text page sharing all of the files uploaded to Kadanzar, and may take some time to load. Not all of the files are world building information (some are just site lists), however many are.

Living On Pern – Link

Shoulder Knots by Wicked Zoeygirl on Deviantart – Link

Oath Roleplay Resources – Link

Notable for its page on dragons and its 'non-canon' charter, which collects or infers mentioned rights from the books.

Xanadu Weyrlinghood – Link

Possibly a wiki page for the Xanadu Weyr MU RP, it has a collection of links relating to weyrlinghood.

Dracogenetics - Link (Google Doc)

Apparently a compilation of work by McCaffrey and Dr Jack Cohen, the site still exists on Geocities but is riddled with spam/virus pop ups: here.

Fandom Topics

A Dragonlover's Guide to Pern Fandom from Kadanzer Weyr – Link The Tentpeg Interview (TW for homophobia and rape mentions) – Link

The Renewable Airforce Document – Link

Alliance Atlantis Dragonriders of Pern 'Making Of/Trailer' - Link

Hosted on Youtube, this is apparently from a CD showcasing the short trailer for their version of Dragonriders of Pern

Ronald D Moore on his cancelled Pern adaptation – Link

Anne McCaffrey – Interviews

Luna Monthly #56, November 1974 – Link

Hosted by FanAc.org, a fan history archive, and conducted by Paul Walker. This heavily discusses gender in the Sci-Fi genre.

Princessions #14, Summer 1983 – Link

Hosted on Google Drive, by this blog runner. Princessions was a Wonder Woman newszine, but switched to being about uplifting women's voices in the Scifantasy space. The interviews take place during the White Dragon book tour.

The Power of Science Fiction and Fantasy with Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough – Link

Hosted on Youtube by A DISCUSSION WITH National Authors on Tour, conducted by Kay Drache of Hennepin County Library.

Collaborating with Anne McCaffrey: An interview with Elizabeth Moon – Link

Hosted on katemacdonald.net, conducted by Kate Macdonald. This talks at length about Moon writing the Planet Pirate series.

Anne McCaffrey - Women Writers, Channel 4 1988 – Link

Hosted on Youtube by Nearrrggghh.

Anne McCaffrey: Norwescon 16 Interview & House Tour – Link

Advice from a Master: Anne McCaffrey – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Time Out of Mind Episode 4 – Link

Hosted on Youtube, Time Out of Mind was a 1979 BBC 2 series about science fiction.

An Interview With Anne McCaffrey by Lynne Jamneck – Link

[winged-cries]

What I always thought about Rape Me is that he was so frustrated by the male audience's dismissal of themes in his music like Polly that he tried to do a song so in your face literally screaming Rape at the listeners so they couldn't deny it anymore like "Fuck you, this isn't fun you're going to sit here and listen to what I'm saying. Just stay with me" (annoyingly the statements from those fans at the time was that it was about the media). Off but on topic, Courtney has never been public about it but she sometimes hints at CSA too, like when they mentioned her first psychologist as a child (Maybe 7) was a crook and she said he was a pervert with child porn in his office. I'm sure she and Kurt spoke about these things.

Looking back on it, there is something so personal about what he's putting us through. Combine that with the unexplained stomach pains and certain other issues and..... Yikes. Amazing piece of reflective art. Where did you find the articles discussing it through that lens with the quotes from people around?

i'm sorry, i thought i'd linked the article.

your interpretation is a valid one, i agree that he was trying to be as blunt with it as possible - and it's really funny how people still insisted it wasn't about actual rape. but i've always thought those lyrics were also somewhat personal. i don't like to conjecture about the abuse real people may or may not have suffered, although i think it's already become something of a common assumption that kurt was a victim of sexual abuse at some point in his childhood or adolescence. i don't think that can be taken as certain truth because abuse of other kinds could also cause the trauma kurt obviously suffered. he was neglected and kicked out of his home, and those feelings of being unwelcome and out of place followed him his whole life. other things happened too, we'll never know the details of it. it does seem very likely to me that he suffered sexual abuse but it's just my own way of relating to him, i suppose, you could read anything there. i don't know if it's right to openly conjecture in this way. still, sexual abuse is an important and common theme in his work, both his music and visual art, so talking about it is inevitable.

[jewishfem]

by siding with fascist rhetoric to suit your hatred of trans people

I do not side with fascist rhetoric.

According to Wikipedia, fascism is a “far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race,” and none applies to who I'm siding with.

far-right: radical feminism, which is what I ascribe to the most (though not completely) is a leftist movement in the way they oppose conservative notions about the female sex, which unfortunately have recently been re-adopted by many leftist circles.

authoritarian: the group which I, according to your view, belong to encourages listening and reading things written by the other sides; silencing women is unacceptable in theory and is criticized when practiced. It doesn't silence males either, it simply doesn't include them.

Ultranationalist: radical feminism views nationalism (and by this, also ultranationalism) in a very critical and negative way. It does so imperialism and militarism as well.

Dictatorial leader: there are no dictatorial leaders to radical feminism, neither does gender critique have such leaders.

Centralized autocracy: there is no regime to gender critique and radical feminism. Can you name an autocrat?

Militaristism: as said before, radical feminism condemns the militaries in the world, not only as opposition to nationalism, but also because of the misogyny in these organizations and bodies, the fact that soldiers not rarely rape women of the enemy side and even among the ranks. Abolition of the military is not a central part of radical feminism, but it definitely is critiques regardless.

Suppression of opposition: this is pure projection. Doctors and other professionals who dare rejecting the ideas of the trans/gender movement (be it hrt or surgeries) are threatened with losing their jobs. Women like jkr who merely stated sex is real was bombarded with violent, disgusting, and absolutely vile threats and messages. Every disagreement with trans/gender claims are referred to as transphobic. Meanwhile gender critical people and radical feminists learn from critique of their work and respond rather than silence.

Belief in natural social hierarchy: gender critique and radical feminism go exactly against that and claim the social hierarchy between men and women is extremely unnatural. Many radfems and gender critics also see other social class hierarchies as unnatural, though that activism is not within the bounds of either gender critique nor feminism (women's liberation), but rather other ideologies like marxism and the likes.

subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race: radical feminism and gender critique do not belong to any state nor race, these are merely ideologies and movements inspired by these ideas. They view racism as a separate form of oppression which intersects with feminism, but also believe that feminist struggle is not about liberation of or the erasing of race, because it's focused, as said before on women and girls' liberation.

I highly recommend you read through blogs such as @radicallyaligned which, in my opinion, is the bestsource for learning about radical feminism and gender critique.

You'll realize we do not hate trans people as a whole, we hate individuals like Dana Rivers, Eli Erlick, and Stacie-Marie Laughton among very many others fetishists, pedophiles, and other perverts. We hate those spewing rape threatsband idolization of it. Here are some articles (last reblog has working links afaik), plus of course, these:

Rape:

Sexual harassment idolization:

Silencing:

Misc:

As said, if you want to learn more about gender critique and radical feminism, check out the blog i mentioned. If you wish to learn more about what we hate about the gender ideology, aside from prominent males there having been accused or charged with sexual and other violent crimes, just ask. I didn't want to include all the HRT studies and the likes so this answer doesn't get too long. I know you don't send these asks bona fide, but i don't mind having a debate over that.

[wellthatwasaletdown]

To support you @wellthatwasaletdown - I would just like to add whoever that anon was she was right

Rape and trafficking - In regards of Olivia Wilde and her association with Harvey Weinstein and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kroll Family. Everything is on the internet. Just see what RHCP did-🤮 yikes.

I don't think many people read articles or ignore it because they don't want their favourite and the guilt that comes with associating their favourite with these controversies. Allegations on Harvey Weinstein started in 2011- there are close pictures of OW with HW in 2012, 13, 14, 15.

Also, Azoff was accused of molestation charge and rape of a south american model in 1996, unfortunately it has been scrubbed of the internet I can't find it. Rest all I have provided the links.

https://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/olivia-wilde-and-harvey-weinstein-attend-tribeca-film-news-photo/862567254

https://www.etonline.com/music/191207_olivia_wilde_on_directing_red_hot_chili_peppers_music_video?amp=

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/red-hot-chili-peppers-singer-anthony-kiedis-truth/#:~:text=In%201989%2C%20in%20a%20separate,woman's%20face%20against%20her%20wishes.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies

(Kroll Family is mentioned, this actually happened- Harry and Nick Kroll hung out even after DWD.)

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/harvey-weinstein-bury-sexual-misconduct-allegations

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/sep/15/close-up-harvey-weinstein-butter

(even in 2009 , a case was registered against HW- It was quite public)

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/09/08/former-harvey-weinstein-ally-olivia-wilde-says-dont-worry-darling-villain-is-based-on-insane-pseudo-intellectual-hero-to-the-incel-community-jordan-peterson/

https://www.tiktok.com/@nopecantdothis/video/6997881737032273158

https://x.com/hotrocklwt/status/1478413104845398021?t=baP47Mrml60OEp5fIX36pQ&s=19

(spread your legs - that's where power comes from)

https://cubazinsight.s3.uk.io.cloud.ovh.net/were-olivia-wilde-and-harvey-weinstein-friends.html (just a blog - not official media source- but it just stated and known facts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/nyregion/harvey-weinstein-sex-trafficking-lawsuit.html

Also, on a side note - many models/actress who don't have industry background - had been introduced to Harvey Weinstein via Olivia Wilde - she would encourage Young models to build connection with HW - two Victoria Secret Models spoke about it.

https://x.com/oliviawilde/status/917567150252052480?t=t9RbiDMDbs9kT7SfWtYF1g&s=19

The audacity to make such a statement - that she never witnessed "HW"'s conduct.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-1201884525/

The Azoff -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11864971/Wife-Irving-Azoff-allegedly-subjected-female-housekeeper-sadistic-sexual-assault-campaign.html

https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/msg-ceo-james-dolan-sexual-assault-lawsuit-eagles-masseuse-1235582126/

(Azoff individually isn't named, but you can draw the connection.)

https://pagesix.com/2015/04/24/irving-azoffs-wife-threatened-sony-after-movie-snub/ (the snake 🐍 story almost everyone knows)

https://music.mxdwn.com/2014/11/25/news/mark-ronson-joined-by-registered-sex-offender-mystikal-for-new-song-feel-right/

(this was in 2014, Mark Ronson -who runs in Harry's circle)

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/james-corden-boasts-about-bedding-women-amid-weinstein-joke-backlash/BS74GEQC6WULLDUJP5YDBLKO5E

I apologise for the long post - it is totally up to you to share - but to think Harry wasn't aware about all this when everything is on the internet and being an apologist for him doesn't stand right with me.

This is coming from a "once upon a time - Harry stan". To give the benefit of doubt to that anon - because I don't want the anon to feel bad - maybe she wasn't aware about all this - hope this helps the anon.

Also, Harry has made it impossible to cancel him - because of TPWK and his mother coming to his defense every time, it gets hard to troll when you have mummy by your side because people are sentimental - they will always go - that's his family so ya in a way things are messed up for Harry and why should we bothered if he isn't - this fandom - has victimized Harry for long, only blogs like yours are becoming a safe space to speak out, so yeah! I don't have anything else to say.

P.S - I FELT THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

.

[anamericangirl]

have you ever even thought about WHY a woman might need an abortion? What if they were raped? What if giving birth could seriously hurt/kill the mother? What if it was an unplanned teen pregnancy or a teenager was raped? Do you still think they should carry the baby until the birth, knowing the mother could suffer? Do you think it’s ok if the mother dies as long as the baby lives? the other anons are right & you ARE fucking disgusting. You will never change pro-choicer’s minds no matter what.

I've thought about why women get abortions many times. And it's clear you've been led to believe that abortion is the solution to the reasons you mentioned but that's not actually the case.

>What if they were raped?

Women don't need an abortion if they were raped. I can understand why they might want one because that's scary. She's been victimized, violated, and hurt and now she's pregnant through no choice of her own and I completely understand and sympathize with her situation and how she is feeling. But, in this situation, we now have more than one innocent person involved. If the baby was not a living human being from the moment of conception I would say go ahead and get an abortion. But they are a living human being from the moment of conception and your solution here is to kill the child for the crimes of the father. We don't even kill the rapist in these situations but you want to give the death penalty to the baby?

There is also the fact that abortion doesn't help. It's not a safe, magical, trauma free baby eraser. It's an invasive procedure that comes with several risks of its own. It's not safe. And it remains not safe even if the woman was raped.

Abortion triples the maternal mortality rate (and, interestingly, it was also found that a safe delivery is linked to reduction in mortality risks that are associated with both miscarriage and abortion).

Abortion increases the risk of premature death for a woman by 50%.

Abortion harms women's mental health

some bullet points from the article:

″Women who have had an abortion have an 81% higher risk of subsequent mental health problems compared to women who have not had an abortion.

″Women who aborted have a 138% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women who have given birth.

″Women who aborted have a 55% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women with an "unplanned" pregnancy who gave birth.

″Women with a history of abortion have higher rates of anxiety (34% higher), depression (37%), alcohol use/misuse (110%), marijuana use (230%), and suicidal behavior (155%), compared to those who have not had an abortion.

Abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by 44% in women who have had just one abortion and the risk gets even higher with multiple abortions.

There are multiple risks associated with abortion.

More ways abortion hurts women.

Some bullet points from the above article:

31% of women having abortions report suffering physical health complications (1)

10% of women having abortions suffer immediate, potentially life-threatening complications (2, 3, 4)

Women have a 65% higher risk of clinical depression following abortion vs. childbirth (5)

65% of women suffer symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after abortion (1)

Women’s death rates from various causes after abortion are 3.5 times higher than after giving birth  (6, 7)

Many women describe their experience as ‘a nightmare’, which can hardly equated with ‘choice’. 60% of women surveyed after abortion responded that: ’Part of me died’ (1)

Suicide rates among women who have abortions are six times higher than those who give birth (7, 8)

Abortion increases a woman’s risk of future miscarriages by 60% (9)

You are advocating for a woman to be able to undergo a very unsafe, risky procedure just because in the moment they think they want it. A woman who was raped and ends up pregnant needs emotional support, counseling, and thorough medical care. Not an abortion.

>what if giving birth could seriously hurt/kill the mother?

If giving birth is going to seriously hurt or kill the mother then chances are an abortion will too. And if giving birth will kill the mother she needs to be seen by a doctor at a hospital. Abortion is not a treatment for life threatening pregnancy complications. In situations like that the mother needs to be treated as necessary because if she dies so will the baby but the treatment for those situations is rarely, if ever, an abortion.

>what if it's an unplanned teen pregnancy or a teen was raped?

If a teen girl was raped that's terrible but you can read my above answer about abortion in cases of rape because it doesn't change for a teenager.

If it's an unplanned pregnancy, why should the baby die? They are still as much of a person as they are in a planned pregnancy. It is safer to go through the natural pregnancy and birth process than it is to get an abortion. So a pregnant teenager needs thorough medical care and attention throughout the pregnancy, not an abortion. It's still not safe even if a teenager is pregnant.

Abortion does not magically erase the baby. The woman still has to deliver it from her body. Abortion forces the body to "birth" a dead baby. That's the difference. You advocate for the delivery of a dead baby. I advocate for the delivery of a living one.

>do you think it's ok if the mother dies as long the baby lives?

No, that's why I don't support things that would kill the mother. I want both the mother and baby to be taken care of. I want them both to live. If the mother dies the baby is going to die, too. The baby cannot live if the mother doesn't. And killing the baby doesn't save the mothers' life. In situations where the mother may die she needs to be treated as necessary and every effort needs to be taken to save her life. Doctors should be try to save both lives. And if the baby dies in the process of saving the mother that is tragic but it's not an abortion.

The problem here is you just don't really understand what abortion is. For some reason you think killing a baby is the only solution to a tough situation, but you're wrong. You don't ever need to kill a baby. We can let them both live.

And I've actually had former pro-choicers tell me I have helped to change their mind so you're wrong :)

[safedistancefrombeingsmart]

Hello~ I saw that you are Martin Enthusiast, so I thought you would know better and wanted to clarify something. And sorry this is an uncomfortable topic to speak but I wanted to make sure before I conclude something. The thing is I saw a post with 200 likes about Martin and Benedict are shi**y people... Especially Martin uttering rap*st jokes and being homophobic? I don't know anything about them, it's only been a month I came to know these actors and after seeing this allegations I don't know what to think, so I thought maybe you could enlighten me that contradict this before I dwell into more of their movies/series. Again sorry for bringing such heavy topic into your feed, I can't help since I'm sensitive to such accusations, if it's not true I have no idea why people think these are something normal to accuse someone of, so yeah..... Have a good day 😇🥰

Hello, dear anon.

Before I answer in more detail let me say 3 things:

Thank you so much for not just blindly believing what you read on the internet and asking for advice. You have no idea how much this delights me. A few weeks ago, a TikTok video went a bit viral and claimed that Martin was homophobic, racist, abuses his kids and tells rape jokes. Seeing how many people blindly believed what they saw in a badly researched TikTok and cancelled Martin was disheartening. I also saw the post you mentioned, but decided not to react- because well, what's the point?

As you said yourself, I am a Martin enthusiast. I know next to nothing about Benedict, so all I am saying will be about Martin.

Most of the accusations are old, like several years old and originate from the infamous 'your fave is problematic' tumblr blog. Google it if you want to, I won't link it for obvious reason. The person behind that blog now looks back at it with 'shame and regret'.

So, is it true that Martin said some things in the past he probably shouldn't have said? Yes, it's true- there is no denying that. But then again: isn't that something we are ALL guilty of? I know I've said things in the past that I regret now. I have a very twisted and dark sense of humour, not unlike Martin (I think). Yes, he is a famous person and he should be more aware of what he says. I think his publicist probably hated him many, many times for speaking his mind. 😆 But that is also something I adore about Martin- he just says what he thinks without caring about what people will think about him. He just doesn't give a shit. I envy that. And I like him even more because of that.

Also, none of the things he said were truly awful. Most of them were taken out of context and sound bad- until you read the whole thing. Please read this article which deals with that nicely and so much better than I ever could. Also, this is totally worth a read and shows that Martin isn't a bad person and Cancel Culture sucks.

Do yourself a favour and read both articles/ blog posts I linked.

Maybe one of my followers has some similar links for Benedict?

I decided not to go into further detail about any of the 'problematic' things he said. For now. If you want my opinion on a certain quote/ joke, just let me know. I am not shying away from it, I just don't want to spend too much time on something if it's not really needed.

Thanks again for the ask, and I hope this helped.

[germiyahu]

Can I see the paper you mentioned about the supposed racism that idf is racist for not touching Palestinian women l. Not that I don’t believe you I just need to see it for myself

I can’t find the paper itself, but several blog posts and articles and websites mention such a paper. It’s an argument made by a doctoral candidate, Tal Nitzan. Some of the arguments made by that paper are discussed in the website linked, but the author admits that he nor the person he talked to could find the paper, even though it had been published.

There’s also an Intifada II era article by Ronit Lentin that does talk about historical sexual violence committed by Israeli troops (but feels no need to mention sexual violence historically committed by Arab troops interestingly). In it she cites Suheir Aszzouni Mahshi, who wrote in 1995 about two Palestinian women she knew who were assaulted in prison.

Her complaint was that the guards used sticks because (by her assessment) the Palestinian women “were not worthy to be touched.” So not only is that source anecdotal, but her conclusions are based on her own intuition and not rigorously conducted academic research. But her conclusion fits this pattern of trying to racially politicize a lack of penile rape. For instance, she doesn't consider that perhaps these guards knew that should they be caught, using a stick instead of their penises might incur a lesser punishment? I don't know anything about Israeli laws, but "they're so racist omg" is not the first conclusion I would come to?

Ronit Lentin's paper however does assert that Israeli soldiers have committed sexual violence in the past, and that there's an aversion to discussing that today. That's still true. We know this is true. Jewish and Arab armies used sexual violence or the threat thereof as a weapon during the war.

The reason the IDF today doesn't really rape anyone is not because Palestinian women are too icky to inflict that kind of violence on (historically that's not the case). It's also not that they're more moral, but because they're more well trained. They're a professional citizen army. They're answerable to the politicians who are answerable to the electorate, but they also are the electorate. The IDF is structured so that a soldier who engages in misconduct can be held accountable.

To call the absence of a certain abuse proof of an underlying abusive motivation is bizarre, and not really how evidence is treated in the West, so granted. But these ideas are not fringe per se. I know many pro Palestinian voices know about them, because they invert them to use against Jews. That's why they specifically target Mia Schem, claim she's offended that the man holding her wouldn't assault her.

If you read/listen to her testimony, she was afraid that he would! But that is used against her too, wow how dare she assume the Brown man (who is probably the same skin tone as her lol) would ever be a sexual threat! White woman tears! This is just like Emmitt Till!

The entire reason they invert claims like this is because they know the original claim is absurd, that Jewish men are racist for not raping Arab women. So they repackage it as something they want you to believe Jews are saying instead, so that you can bask in the absurdity of the lie of Zionist Victimhood. And for some of them, I'm willing to bet they secretly wish they could assault girls like Mia Schem.

Because to say Jewish women are lying about being raped but also have some kind of fixation with being raped, are offended they weren't raped... you know "it didn't happen but the bitch wanted it/deserved it" type talk... the men claiming this want to rape Jewish women. It's obvious. And the women claiming this want to watch men rape Jewish women.

They're rapists but for lack of opportunity. And I'm comfortable claiming that.

[esther-dot]

It's just weird that how many times it occurs in Brienne chapters about how Sansa will no longer remain maid or being raped. I just hope that Grrm spared Sansa from getting involved in any kind of unwanted sexual encounters. I mean if he can save Brienne from getting raped at last moment he could have Sansa spared from it. I am actually wary of how he will deal with Sansa sexuality considering time gap he scrapped.

I think that Martin has had Sansa endure these assaults not as a prelude to her getting raped, but rather, to make her escape from them all the more remarkable. If a horrible fate doesn’t seem possible or imminent, the fact that it doesn’t happen wont hit with the same weight. To me, when the Hound holds the knife to her throat and nearly rapes her, the idea isn’t that he never would, but that he was this close to following through, and Sansa’s compassion was the only thing that stopped him.

I mentioned to someone in the comments on a recent post that the Hound brags he’s a butcher and women and children only meat, but Sansa’s kindness to him, her compassion for his suffering, prevents him from seeing her that way, changes how he views himself. It’s an awful moment, I don’t like reading about Sansa getting perved on and assaulted, but I can understand why Martin included some of it, to show the power of something other than brute force, to show her power over villains. That’s not to deny that the accumulative affect of it all by now is a lot. It is. We pretty routinely bemoan it!

I’ve been pretty confident that book Sansa will not be raped or killed for some time. Before I’ve pointed to the “virgin” trope in medieval lit (I know) as a potential reason why it never seemed like part of her story:

Telling the hero what God has in store for them is The Virgin’s primary job. She tires to keep the hero on their quest. She is often described as beautiful, graceful. Though still generally a secondary or even tertiary character in Medieval literature, The Virgin is still important to the plot. She is respected and protected in some way throughout the story. Even when she is in trouble, the author doesn’t do any physical damage to her, often just putting her to sleep or locking her somewhere until the hero can save her. (link)

(talked about this some more over here)

and I also think, as much as Martin writes a lot of sexual violence/threats of sexual violence, this isn’t something he’d do to Sansa thoughtlessly. I found this quote on his old blog some time ago, and it is reassuring to me that he takes the threat of rape against his characters seriously (poor guy wrote this before GoT premiered--I can only imagine what he thought after s5):

I have sometimes allowed other writers to play with my children.  In Wild Cards, for instance, which is a shared world.  Lohengrin, Hoodoo Mama, Popinjay, the Turtle, and all my other WC creations have been written by other writers, and I have written their characters.  But I submit, this is NOT at all the same thing.  A shared world is a tightly controlled environment.  In the case of Wild Cards, it's controlled by me.  I decide who gets to borrow my creations, and I review their stories, and approve or disapproval what is done with them.  "No, Popinjay would say it this way," I say, or "Sorry, the Turtle would never do that," or, more importantly (this has never come up in Wild Cards, but it did in some other shared worlds), "No, absolutely not, your character may not rape my character, I don't give a fuck how powerful you think it would be." And that's Wild Cards.  A world and characters created to be shared.  It's not at all the same with Ice & Fire.  No one gets to abuse the people of Westeros but me. (link)

Rape, even though he includes far more sexual violence than we may want, is something he takes seriously. He isn't going to have Sansa raped so that it trends on twitter/sparks countless articles, ups viewership, unlike how GoT used it. It would only happen in ASOIAF if Sansa's story demanded it, and since we have a prophecy of Sansa killing a giant in Winterfell rather than being harmed by one, I believe that Sansa will go North and be empowered, not further victimized.

As for a general wariness about how he is going to handle Sansa's sexuality, it depends on how you read the foreshadowing, but I do tend to think she will have a romantic relationship on the page, so I guess it isn't all good news for you, anon! 😅

[placegrenette]

Why domestic violence (against women primarily) is a big concern in Kazakhstan right now.

I haven't seen a good informal roundup so I'm going to take a stab at one. As always, do not entirely trust your ignorant American narrator.

It's not that domestic violence hasn't been on people's radars previously–y'all might recall that way back in 2019 Ninety One took part in a campaign against gender-based violence led by the US Consulate General in Almaty–and there are a good number of grassroots organizations that I know nothing about and can't do justice to. (A coalition of 16 of them, the Union of Crisis Centers in Kazakhstan, gets mentioned in this 2019 Human Rights Watch piece.) But it seems to have exploded in the last week or so as a result of several high-profile cases.

Quite possibly the biggest, and ugliest, one is the murder of Saltanat Nukenova; her husband, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, has apparently been ordered to jail as the suspected killer. I think this case is getting a lot of attention because Bishimbayev was a well-known figure who was in government at 27 and who is now suspected of corruption (apparently his father was buddy-buddy with Nursultan Nazarbayev; the top article on Orda.kz right now is an article raising questions about his mother's wealth) and because he was rich (see previous clause; also, the argument that may have led to him beating Nukenova to death apparently started at their restaurant); but friends of Nukenova's are coming forward saying that Bishimbayev had been physically abusing her for years.

I say "several cases" because the translated introduction to the latest Zamandas podcast refers to three separate cases, but I only know of the Nukenova murder. Suffice to say it seems to be the tip of a longstanding, widely-known iceberg. Here's the translation of a Facebook post by Zhanna Muhmadi, whom Eurasianet describes as a "well-known lawyer":

I would like to remind you that in Kazakhstan they give a WARNING for intentional beating of wives! You beat her once, you get a warning, but the second time you can kill her. In our country, even for the murder of wives they gave 1.5 years. P.S. Sincere condolences to the girl's family. The most severe punishment for all murderers!

(Note that Google Translate rendered "You beat her..." as "You beat him," but I changed it; I suspect Russian has the same direct object for male and female third person.)

I've found translating timestamps useful in the past, so here they are for the most recent Zamandas podcast linked above:

00:00 Start of the podcast. Why are we recording this issue and important issues of domestic violence. 03:11 Terrible news of the past week. 07:08 About justifying comments and impunity. About Bishimbayev. 09:07 About manipulation in the media and blogging sphere. About Rashev. 10:59 What is known at the moment? 12:40 About silence. 13:56 Why do men hate women in Kazakhstan? 18:49 About rape in Taldykorgan. [note: this is harder to find information about, but apparently a high-ranking police officer in Taldykorgan has been detained on suspicion of rape.] 20:46 About the law on domestic violence and the inaction of the police. 24:04 “If you don’t hear girls, listen to men” 28:30 Why are men silent? 33:36 About n*violence and emotional tyranny. 37:20 About the incident with the security guard at the nightclub. 42:02 About misogyny. 44:50 About traditions and non-violence. 47:48 “If someone raises a hand against you, leave” 50:20 About education. 54:15 We as a society cannot forgive such things. 56:20 The problem of domestic violence does not have a social portrait. 58:14 About divorce and conviction. 01:00:02 About romanticization in the media. 01:01:03 About tightening the law. See something - say something. 01:04:01 About the relationship of law enforcement agencies to victims. 01:07:07 About male solidarity. 01:08:03 About the incident on the train and the conductors. 01:10:06 About the Don’t Be Silent Foundation. 01:12:51 About the situation in bars and spiking. 01:16:55 Conclusion.

The "Don't Be Silent Foundation," by the way, is NeMolchi (Н�� Молчи = "do not be silent" in Russian); I don't know if they're taking donations.

ZaQ and Alem both linked (in Instagram Stories) to a petition (machine translation) currently circulating that's calling upon the Kazakhstani government to take domestic violence more seriously and create stronger criminal punishments for it. (Alem spoke in his stories before sharing the link; unfortunately, as usual, I can't tell you what he said. @ninetyonekz translated the stories: one, two, three.) Orda has an article about the petition (machine translation) that notes that it was originally created in 2021 and basically went ignored for two years. The more cynical among you might say that domestic violence is this week's Current Thing in Kazakhstan, and the guys do not want to be seen as lagging behind. To be fair, I think Veronika has been publicly and privately acknowledging these issues for much longer; she linked to the petition as well, as well as to Dr. Aigerim Turekulova, who recently wrote about the health risks to Kazakhstani women and girls from interpersonal violence. Backup dancer Diana also linked to it, and wrote (if the machine translation got her caption right) about how her ex-husband was physically abusive, and people told her not to bother reporting it to the authorities, it would be a waste of time.

I don't know if this is going to lead to longer-lasting change. I sure hope so, but there's a lot of competition for We Need to Do Something About This right now, both in Kazakhstan and globally (a week or two ago a bunch of people, including I believe all of Irina Kairatovna, were raising money to help residents of Gaza City, and we haven't even gotten to the ArcelorMittal mine disaster in Karaganda last month). Also I would put the odds of a backlash as high. But at least something is happening. And since I suspect most of my audience is either against domestic violence or pro learning about Kazakhstan, it seemed worth reporting.

[otmaaromanovas]

@melthehoneyjar posted an excerpt from this article saying that on the way to Yekaterinburg, OTMA got sexually molested. Is this true because i do not think it’s true and @melthehoneyjar is also unsure.

TRIGGER WARNING - sexual assault and rape

This is a very sensitive topic so please don't read it if you will be triggered! It's difficult to talk about this and I want to stick to what the sources say. I've added a cut so you can skip this post easily if this is upsetting and/or triggering for you

The article linked is by Simon Sebag Montefiore, who is most well known for writing the huge book 'The Romanovs'. Like Helen Rappaport, there are a lot of mistakes in it, and he doesn't provide references in the actual book itself. The references are instead buried online somewhere on his website.

I'm going to reference only primary sources (writings made at the time by the Romanovs, or by the people who knew them, so are directly from the time period and not a historian's interpretation). Some people believe that OTMA were raped on board the steam ship Rus, which took them to Tobolsk, then to Ekaterinburg. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia all shared one room on the ship.

There is no evidence in any of OTMA's, or the other Romanov's written work, including letters, diaries, and postcards that have survived, to suggest that they were sexually assaulted

Sidney Gibbes, the English Tutor, says that he heard the girls screaming in their cabins whilst they were on board the Rus. However, this source came from Greg King and Penny Wilson's book 'The Fate of the Romanovs', which popularised the lie that Maria had a relationship with a guard. They also relied on a lot of unreliable material, such as Tatiana Botkina's memoirs and Yakov Yurovsky's 'unpublished memoirs'. They also allege that Sophie Buxhoeveden betrayed the Romanovs, which is categorically untrue. This lie has sadly tarnished Sophie's reputation in history. I plan on making a post debunking the lies in that book.

Their research was not thorough, and the book aimed to sensationalise. Furthermore, the book I have that is comprised entirely of Gibbes recollections, writings, and diary entries make no mention of this. King and Wilson claim that they heard this information from George Gibbes, Sidney Gibbes' adopted son. The only reference for this is simply "George Gibbes to King, May 1989".

This book is the only book, and the only place where this rumour, originates from. Nothing in OTMA's personal writings suggested that they were assaulted. It must be considered, however, that they might have been and didn't put it into writing. But the lack of reference to this by other writers such as Pierre Gilliard, who sought to emphasise the villainy of the Bolsheviks, could suggest otherwise.

I am going to include information regarding the Rus steam ship journey from primary sources:

Gilliard about the journey on the Rus steam ship, from his diary: "Monday, May 20th. At half-past eleven we left the house and went on board the Rouss. She is the boat which brought us here with the Czar and Czarina eight months ago. Baroness Buxhoeveden has been granted permission to rejoin us. We left Tobolsk at five o'clock. Commissary Rodionof has shut Alexis Nicolaievitch in his cabin with Nagorny. We protested: the child is ill and the doctor ought to have access to him at any time."

Nicholas' diary, 4-5 August 1917: "4th August. ...There, the train arrived almost next to the wharf, so we only had to walk down to the ship. Ours is called Rus . They started to load our things, which continued through the night. Poor Aleksei went to bed God knows when again! Banging and pounding lasted all night and did not let me sleep. Departed from Tyumen around 6 o'cl.

5th August. Cruising down the river Tur. Alix, Aleksei and I each have a cabin with no facilities, all the daughters are a five-bed [cabin], the suite is close by in the hallway; farther towards the bow cafeteria and a small cabin with a piano..."

Nicholas' diary, 10/23 May 1918: "In the morning we were told within the space of an hour: that the children were a few hours from the town, then that they had reached the station, and finally that they had arrived at the house, although their train had been in the station since 2 o’clock at night. It was an immense joy to see them again and to embrace them after four weeks of separation and uncertainty. There was no end to the mutual questions and answers. Very few letters had got through either way. The poor things had suffered a lot of anguish, both in Tobolsk and during their three day journey. Of those who accompanied them, only the cook Kharitonov and Sednev’s nephew were allowed into the house."

To conclude, although we don't know for sure, the lack of first hand writings from OTMA and the Imperial Family make me unsure to conclude that they were assaulted. The only source for this being from a flimsy-researched book and from word-of-mouth rather than a concrete piece of writing also makes this questionable.

I just hope and pray they weren't.

Sources:

A Lifelong Passion - Maylunas and Mirenko

The Fate of the Romanovs - King and Wilson

Thirteen Years at the Russian Court - Pierre Gilliard

Diary of Olga Romanov - Helen Azar

[world-cinema-research]

Week 7 Part 2 - Twin Peaks and Chungking Express Two-Film Comparison Essay (Style, Look, and Feel and Conventionality)

Carly Leavitt-Hullana

As mentioned in part 1, the ‘films’ I will be discussing are episodes one and two of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990) for week six and Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) for week seven. Both of these films have been highly critically rated, which I discussed in part 1, along with many critics making a large point about the style, look, and feel of the show or film, nodding to the uniqueness and creativity of the directors. Along with the style, look, and feel unique to each film, I will also discuss and compare the conventionality of each film and discuss what makes it so.

Starting with the discussion of Twin Peaks again, this show is known by many for its eerie vibe to the show and town of the same name. Scenes are commonly cool, dark, and overcasted and frequently accompanied with an unnerving and suspenseful soundtrack, especially during spine-chilling scenes. Many critics argue that this show is a well produced television show which draws in viewers as well as is vastly different from other drama and soap opera series, while some critics straightforwardly claim that Twin Peaks is weird and unsettling. An article from Britannica further explains, “It garnered critical acclaim and a cult following with its unconventional narrative, surreal tone, and eerie characters” (Twin Peaks Synopsis & Reception via Britannica). However, it is David Lynch’s creation after all, which many viewers had experienced his style four years prior in his critically acclaimed film, Blue Velvet.

With that being said, which the previous quote briefly touched on, Twin Peaks is almost 100 percent unconventional. The only aspect that doesn’t add to the unconventional claim is that the popular David Lynch directed this show, it somewhat followed the common storyline of a murder mystery, and it is highly critically rated. Even so, the style, look, and feel of the film as well as the topics discussed and the rethinking genre aspects makes Twin Peaks mainly unconventional. Some uncomfortable topics that might unsettle, upset, or offend viewers are how Twin Peaks has relations with the rising crack cocaine, heroine, and drug epidemic in the late 80s and early 90s along with the trend of an increase in crime during that time period as well. On the topic of crime, serial killers were also starting to become a large problem to society from the 70s to the 90s, in combination with the number of rape victims reaching a peak in 1990. And you can’t forget the frequent cheating scandals among the town that come up in just the first two episodes. It is also good to keep in mind that this show also falls under the surrealism, cult film, and supernatural genres, so you could imagine that it can get unnerving and confusing at times and constantly push the boundaries of a classic murder mystery genre; which all can get extremely controversial at times.

This screenshot of Twin Peaks is from episode 2 during FBi Agent Cooper's dream, where when he wakes up he immediately calls Sheriff Truman telling him he's figured out who murdered Laura Palmer. This image and scene displays David Lynch's odd and unsettling projects which many viewers have come to know him by.

With that being said, I can connect Twin Peaks to the launch of the Human Genome Project by linking these two pieces with the fact that they both symbolize a changing time in American society. Albeit Twin Peaks and 1990 launch of The Human Genome Project are considerably different from each other, as one is a television series and one is a research project about finding and mapping the complete human genes for further study, they have the slightest similarity. Which is the fact that they are both dealing with DNA and research/further investigation as the FBI Agent in Twin Peaks is working to solve the murder of a high school girl with data, DNA, and case leads and The Human Genome project is working to uncover the complete makeup of human genes and establish the complete DNA bases in human genes.

Moving on to Chungking Express, this film uniquely highlights the isolation and loneliness in the large city of Hong Kong. Highly acclaimed movie critic Roger Ebert writes, “His visuals rhythmically switch between ordinary film, video and pixelated images, often in slow motion, as if the very lives of his characters threaten to disintegrate into the raw materials of media" (Chungking Express via Roger Ebert). This quote describes part of the uniqueness of the films look, feel, and style, as director Wong Kar-wai uses a combination of multiple varying techniques that are unusual not only for the time period this film was released in, but for the genre of the film as well.

This trailer shows some of the unique filming styles director Wong Kar-wai uses throughout Chungking Express of blurred scenes and canted angles, among many other techniques mentioned above.

With that being said, Chungking Express is also unconventional for reasons similar to Twin Peaks, and the film styles are very unique as well as the fact that many are left confused by the film. Slightly touched previously in part one, a writer at The Harvard Crimson writes, “Wong’s dreamlike film is weird and gorgeous. It is by no means, however, a fully realized idea.” ( ‘Chungking Express’ is Poetic, Genre-Bending, and Incomplete via The Harvard Crimson). Which adds to the main reasons for Chungking Express’s unconventional stance as many viewers are very commonly confused by the film and fail to look at the deeper meaning of it, along with the unique style, look, and feel of the film discussed above.

Taking into consideration the arguments listed above as well as in part one, Twin Peaks and Chungking Express share some similarities in the fact that they both challenged society and its views on genres and conventionalism as well as popularity. However, they also express differences in their critical acclimations, finances, and genres as they both touch on completely different topics that are both equally relevant to society in the 90s in their own ways.