#are dem gay men

[unamusedyams]

[otterbearz]

Lick it. Suckle on it.

[levon]

the band as yogurt flavors

Richard - Chobani Flip S'more S'mores

Rick - Chobani Flip Key Lime Crumble

Robbie - Trader Joe's Blueberries & Cream

Garth - ALDI Indulgent Greek Yogurt Honey

Levon - Homemade Cottage Cheese

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

More people need to be obsessed with The Third Man (1949)

[chappell-roans]

do you think Chappell and Taylor will collab someday?

I think anything is possible and they have quite different voices so it could make for a very fun (or sad, or whatever) song.

[k-wame]

lol he knows something

[britishtophatwithlondon]

Good afternoon guys!

Today I'll be drawing a caricature of David Cameron and Nick Clegg's relationship!

I hope you like it!🌹

[bishonenspit]

bonham really must love dorian bc if my live in boss roommate friend who kisses me sometimes was like well the homophobic guy who hates me so bad told me that zen buddhism will cure me of my intense paranoia so we are going to do that in the streets of austria i would be like that's cool queen but ☝️ have you considered. seeking professional help

[procrastiel]

I don’t know what it is but

men being homoerotic with each other

[milfswriter]

Can you write a Rhea x reader story where they go to the movies and reader is wearing a short skirt and it causes boys to stare and try to flirt with them so Rhea grabs reader in certain ways that shows she’s hers and then later punishes reader for their outfit choice? Smut please 🤪

Possessive

Rhea Ripley x reader

Summary: You're Rhea's, and Rhea's only

Notes and warnings: men (i know i'm sorry), jealousy, smut (not that much tbh), bathroom sex, mentioned strapon sex

THE GIF?? Thanks for the internal gay panic in the middle of Starbucks @rebecca-quin

"Hey, pretty" you turned your head to see a guy walking towards you with a smug look on his face as he looked you up and down.

Demi was supposedly getting popcorn while you were waiting in line to purchase tickets for the new horror movie Rhea's been talking about non-stop.

"Can I..help you?" you raised a brow, looking around to make sure he was talking to you. Ugh, you didn't wanna deal with this right now, it's supposed to be a fun night out but now you had to shoo him away in fear of Rhea unleashing her fists on him.

She was violently possessive, not to you of course, but she would lay her hands on anyone who dares talk to you even though the diamond on your finger could not be ignored. People, specifically men, knew you were taken, yet they still tried their luck.

The little skirt that hung just under your ass cheeks and the tight tank top were definitely not helping the situation.

"you could help by giving me your number" he grinned, the smug look on his face disgusted you.

Just as you were about to say something, you felt the familiar pair of hands around your waist, pulling you against your fiance's warm body. "Hey, bunny. D'you get the tickets?" she asked with a kiss to your jaw, the man's face contoured in confusion. She still hasn't noticed him, good.

Although, you knew she noticed the other creeps you knew were staring at you when she gripped your hips towards hers, allowing you to feel what she had under her boxers. Of course she was wearing it.

"Uh..Did you hear what I said?" he tried to gain back your attention, Rhea's frame stiffening around you.

"Who are you?" she asked..loudly as she stepped in front of you, crossing her arms. "O..kay" you gulped as people started staring and tried to pull her back by her belt.

"None of your goddamn business" he answered, "I was talking to her" He nodded towards you, and you knew if he doesn't get the hell out of there, he'd be a dead man in less than 10 minutes.

"Dems, please..just ignore him" you whispered onto her back, pulling on her belt loops.

"Well..her, is my wife. So you'd back off if you know what's good for you" She was face to face with him at this point, her features trembling with rage.

You froze at the name. Wife.

It wasn't anything new, you'd be her wife in a few short months. But hearing her say it like that made you feel...hot. Suddenly you didn't wanna stop her anymore.

The guy snarled at her before rolling his eyes and turning to walk away. "bitch.." she mumbled, turning to you with a hard look.

"Come" was all she said before walking away. She didn't even bring popcorn so what the hell was happening?

--

she pushed you against the stall door, your cheek hitting it with a hard thud. "Sorry, you ok?" she chuckled quietly, not wanting anyone coming in to hear what you two were up to.

"S'okay" you groaned, "what about the movie though?"

"It's alright bunny, we'll catch the one at 10" She lifted your skirt, toying with your ass cheeks as she kissed and nipped at your neck.

"you're not wearing that skirt again, you hear me? I could see your pussy from the other side of the building!"

"I'm wearing panties, Demi don't be dramatic" you whined before turning your head just a little to look at her "are you body-shaming me?"

"of course not, idiot. Don't twist my words" She bit your shoulder, making you yelp, "everyone was staring at you..everyone but me..the only one who's got the right to do that"

She moved your panties to the side with one hand, the other forcing her fingers past your lips to wet them. "you've got a smart mouth, now hm?" her wet fingers made their way to your now-exposed pussy rubbing up and down your slit, not that you'd need the lubrication.

She took her hands off you and you heard her zipper being pulled down and felt the tip of the faux cock poking your ass cheek. "we've got 20 minutes, stay still"

-------

"two tickets for Scream, please" Rhea grinned innocently at the clerk as if she didn't have her strap inside you to the hilt mere minutes ago and the only thing helping you walk normally was her arm around your waist.

BONUS:

"Soo..because I watched that absolute nightmare with you" you began, playing with her rings as the two of you walked to your car, "would you watch Barbie with me next month?"

"Not a fucking chance"

"DEMS!"

"I can't stand the cringe, baby I'm sorry" She opened the passenger door for you and you got in but not before you gave her a small pout.

Taglist:

@slut4ripley @ara-a-bird@jungwoospeach@neganwifey25-blog@yourmisosoup@cameronsdruthers@dementedtrashcat @sunnnyshark @1c4ntg3ty0u0ffmym1nd @sweety-jamieluvss

[bumblebeerror]

Don’t get me wrong man, Kamala Harris being an actual politician who knows what the fuck is going on is my preferred president to the Cheeto who wants to make it legal for him to be king, but CHRIST if every news site doesn’t sound like a tiktok audio of the most annoying resident of San Francisco, California.

Like my guy she is not girlbossing. Her running mate was EIGHTY YEARS OLD and decided probably people would like someone else because the dem docket is hemorrhaging votes because everybody’s retired grandpa is showing up to the polls and fuckijg nobody else because they all believe in the glorious revolution and fuck them poor / disabled folks am I right.

She’s not joining the gays, she is an ex cop. She’s not girlbossing, she was literally just handed the presidential candidacy by Joe. Like I love a good shattered glass ceiling too but are you fucking kidding me. She is 59 years old my guy she does not give a FUCK about gay Twitter.

Would it actually kill journalists to write like they don’t have a checklist of new memes to reference every article they write. My guy please just objectively report the news I don’t want to hear about brat summer.

This feels so bah humbug but every article I’ve read looks like a fucking satire piece I would read on this godforsaken webbed site but damn at least it would be satire! They actually mean it on news sites! Her being a woman doesn’t magically make her better at being president - it’s the fact that she isn’t Donald Trump, the guy currently trying to solidify that crime doesn’t count if you’re america’s specialist little boy at the time.

Like yea! She’ll be better than him! That’s not a high fucking bar my guy. We are like 3 inches off the ground with her while trump is subterranean.

Unironically, im glad Biden dropped out. I think it helps to set a precedent that this country doesn’t need yet more tired old men running it. But also don’t get fucking starry-eyed over her being a woman - she ran with Biden for a reason. You still have to stay on her ass about Palestine and reinstating Roe V Wade and protecting gay marriage and trans healthcare. She is not automatically on our side just because she’s a woman.

[fierceawakening]

Because it’s on my mind , I wanted to talk a bit about what I remember of baeddelism when I’d was going around.

Full disclaimer I am not a trans woman, nor am I doing research on the era. So I neither claim to be unbiased nor do I claim to accurately remember everything. I just want to set down what I remember so I have it.

My recollection of how it started was that a trans woman user on tumblr noticed an etymological chart on I think Wikipedia, which said that the English word bad is related to an Old Norse word baedle, which was a term for an effeminate male. In that culture such people were seen as evil or creepy for doing woman things, and their doing so was associated with what we might call black magic.

A group of trans women on tumblr really liked this, and embraced the insulting ancient term in a similar way to how many people embrace queer. “You call me bad for being AMAB and a woman, I call that fine with me.” Baeddel started popping up in lots of trans women’s usernames.

(I do not know if the etymology is accurate. Nor do I know if the ancient term referred to people considered feminine men, considered gender confused, considered to have women’s temperaments or souls, etc.)

What you also saw with this group, though, was an emphasis on being assigned male (as they phrased it, CAMAB for Coercively Assigned Male At Birth, a phrase that has been criticized as ripped off from the intersex community, where people are recognized as physically ambiguous at birth by doctors but a binary assignment is picked anyway.) This was a little surprising at least to me, as the movement I was seeing was away from terms like MTF or FTM that emphasized assigned sex.

So you started seeing the mocking trans men phrased as mocking AFAB people. “Theyfabs” was popular, the idea being that trans masculine people say we don’t fully identify as men because we don’t want to get kicked out of women’s spaces, a neat trick we get to do that trans lesbians don’t.

But our AGAB is fixed. It’s something a doctor says and that gets put on a birth certificate. Once you have it, it doesn’t change.

Which leads to seeing people as inherently evil or inherently good. If you’re (C)AMAB you’re a victim, doomed to be mislabeled a predator. If you’re (C)AFAB you’re privileged, destined to get all the pussy be accepted by lesbians.

But whenever people make a trait destiny, the lends itself to Manicheanism.

So how do you get from “we trans women are cursed to never be accepted” to “we must be put first?”

Well, there’s already an echo of that in leftism anyway, and most gay and trans USians are leftists.

Leftists really like (for good reason imo, I count myself somewhere between “pretty lefty Dem” and “less extreme progressive”) the idea that a lot of social inequality is about certain groups being left out of the discussions and events that shape policy and culture, so the thing to do is listen to those voices first.

Couple that with “around birth you’re sorted and that sorting matters, but for us trans folks that sorting is wrong and painful, and you get, from virtuous to vicious:

Transfem: assigned male, rejects patriarchy/opts out. Most virtuous.

Cis woman: assigned female, oppressed by pstrarchy. Fights oppression but not by leaving high social starts behind. Pretty mid, unless they’re a TERF.

Cis man: assigned male, benefits from patriarchy. Doesn’t reject it, as he’s got a fairly cushy deal and why meds with that. Kind of gross, as shown by unwillingness to refuse the system.

Trans man: assigned female. Opprsssed by patriarchy. Deals with it by doing everything possible to reject assignment. Essentially begging for status and not caring who knows ir. Selfishness incarnate. Pretty fuckin evil.

Some people might think this couldn’t possibly be how any transfem person thinks—isn’t being trans about internal feelings, not relationship to patriarchy?

Usually, yes! But I think the emphasis on ASAB, coupled with the (correct) idea floating around that you don’t need dysphoria to be trans, led these people to focus less on internal sense and more on politics.

My evidence for this belief is that you started to see a lot of posts by these particular transfems saying things like “Ever wanted to be a girl? You can just be one! No particular internal states required!” You started to see a lot of talk by these blogs about trying to look for and crack eggs, talked about less like “I’m going to go look for nominally cis men who seem unhappy and tell them transition is possible” and more like “I’m going to plaster this everywhere to recruit.”

As I see it, the reason everyone is suddenly so chatty about transmisandry is not that we just made it up. It’s that these people had a stranglehold on discourse for a long time, and transmascs who saw it could either openly reject it and be labeled MRAs, silently ignore it and not be heard, or believe it and internalize that choosing not to just live with our dysphoria (when transfems get to have HRT for theirs!) makes us literally evil and selfish.

It often takes a while, when someone is no longer being abused, for them to come up with language to describe what happened. The reaction can be immediate, but can sometimes be a few years delayed. That’s what I think happened here. You’re seeing us talk about transmisandry now because we’re feeling safer to say “no, that’s fucked up, we aren’t just sex gods at the dyke bar, listen to us.”

Do I think that everyone around currently who thinks “transmisandry as a term implies misandry is systemic, and we shouldn’t do that” ascribes to this weird valence flipped “assigned male good, assigned female bad” gender essentialism?

No, but I think it’s reasonable to wonder if someone might, and thus reasonable to say “don’t tell people to stop using that word. Replace it in your head with ‘transphobia,’ shrug, and find another hill to die on.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Malcolm:

Did not start the Stonewall revolt. There was no one event, but an accumulation of episodes of harassment including multiple arrests (such as Stormé DeLarverie) and strip-searches, which built up into an unleashed mob revolt.

Was not even there when the Stonewall revolt began. He himself says he arrived at about 2am and the fighting and the fire were already well underway.

Was not "trans." he describes himself as a "boy" and a drag queen.

If you're wondering, the religious parallel is the Crucifixion. It's ahistorical, there's no evidence it happened, but it's pushed, as an article of faith, as being "true" in order to fabricate a "debt" owed and an obligation by others to repay that mythical debt.

New York's pride was organized by Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes. Michaels had nothing to do with it.

It's interesting that the Dems' official account believes that gay men and women were not organizing and advocating for their own interests and rights until a drugged out, homeless, prostitute and pedophile pimp drag queen came along. That's what they think the legacy of gay rights and its core values are about.

[hidetothink]

is it bad that i as a gay man want trump to win and will be voting for him?

i'm sorry he's just fucking funny. i can't handle 4 more years of biden's ugly boring face.

Uhg, I can't tell if this is a troll, but I also don't care because I know some gay men irl with this opinion so I'll talk to them regardless lol

I dont like Biden or the Dem's at this point. They feel like a hollow, hypocritical party holding my rights hostage for a vote. I'm forced to let them slowly drag a corpse around, doing little to change what I feel needs fixing, because they're the party targeting gays with their policies (no matter how underwhelming). Then you get into modern "progressive" homophobia and it's a wash

BUT to me a Trump vote is a chance for more conservative justices in the Supreme Court, other changes possible through a Trump office regardless, and increasing homophobia of the Red Kind (not to dismiss Blue Flavour) related to the change. Not to mention, the slant of our international policies changing back to Trump standards during a volatile period feels unwise based on what I want to see happen, ideally

None of that changes what bad things (imo) would happen with a Biden presidency. But it's why I'm still uncomfortable with a Trump vote. Personally, I can hope for a return to good gay-rights activism AND political movement in the same direction under a blue president more than a red one, like it or not

But this election is a Cluster Fuck so I'm not side-eyeing anything at this point outside the values leading to whatever vote a person makes

[organichotchoco]

(prefacing this, i very much want to hear why ppl are choosing not to vote and want to learn more so like. pls be nice ig? atleast read the whole thing first before you insilt me cause i am very open to either side pretty much)

kinda weird/dumb for me to talk about like. politics being a minor but like. im confused about how ppl en masse are abstaining voting for biden for very good reasons but. is this protest?? cause. this doesn't actually harm the government or anything, with ppl abstaining from voting even before this from what i remember, and nobody got a fee or anything, nor did it lead to the validity of the presidency being put into question. if trump wins wont project 2025 like. just continue?? cause dems didn't do shit to prevent this plan from happening and as someone quite affected (questioning trans poc minor who is also gay and ex-christian) and also won't be able to leave for a. while. Project 2025 passing will genuinely make my life hell and from the little i know it seem like by mot voting people are just letting it happen. I remember seeing someone say that if we vote dem no matter what they will continue giving us senile old men but if teaching them a lesson will put many lives in danger and america regressing into being even more racist/homophobic, islamophobic, etc (its already bad now for POC, LGBTQ, and other minorities such as non-christians, so if the us regresses even more die to project 2025 I don't even know how bad it could get). Is there like a 3rd party people are rallying behind or are people actively going into the streets to protest/petition the democratic party that they won't be voting for them unless they give better canidates? Are there any precautions like. taken for if this leads to project 2025 being passed?

can someone like. give me more info on how this helps/is protest? and more about this in general? sorry if i am. saying something bad.

[the-girl-who-didnt-smile]

PORT-AU-PRINCE

This is a character inspired by Gede Nibo.

Description below cut: 

RANTING ABOUT THE REAL-LIFE GEDE NIBO (GUEDE NIBO)

Andre Pierre featured Gede Nibo alongside Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte in several paintings, such as “Les Trois Esprits du Cimetiere.”

Previously, I described Gede Nibo as (quote) “unapologetically queer”. Where did I get the audacity to make such a claim? 

Well, there are a number of English language books and other sources that describe Gede Nibo himself as queer. As you may have gathered, I’m a big fan of Eziaku Atuama Nwokocha’s works, and have relied on her research. In Vodou en Vogue, Nwokocha describes him as an “effeminate dandy” who is “honored by queer people”. In Queering Black Atlantic Religions, Roberto Strongman also names Gede Nibo and Erzulie Freda as deities who "have strong associations with queer Vodou practitioners." Strongman’s statement is certainly true with respect to the Erzulies; the question is whether it is also true with respect to Gede Nibo. 

Afraid of making the same mistake I did with Baron Samedi, I searched for a Haitian source, as there is a great amount of misinformation spread by English speaking, non-Haitians. Since the Haitian author Milo Marcelin also described Gede Nibo as queer, I stopped there and thought, “so Gede Nibo really is queer…!”

…But it seems I may have made the exact same mistake I did with Baron Samedi afterall. 

OOPS!

As far as I can tell, the description of Gede Nibo as “queer” among English-speaking, non-Haitians originates in three major sources:

Gay, German author Hubert Fichte

Gay, American author Randy P. Conner

Haitian author Milo Marcelin

Hubert Fichte conducted his ethnographic work in Haiti during the 1970s. Apparently, Fichte heard Haitian farmers singing a song called “Masisi”, in which the lyrics went “Guede Nibo Masisi!” 

He mentions the title of this song in Xango: 

“Es gibt einen schwulen Totengott, Guede Nibo, und Anfang No­vember singt das ganze Land, jeder haitianische Bauer die Hym­nen auf die Schwulen - »Massissi« - und die ruralen Familienvä­ter vollführen ambivalente Gesten vorne und hinten an ihrer Hose.”

Source: Fichte, Hubert, and Leonore Mau. 1984. Xango. Frankfurt: Fischer. p. 143 https://archive.org/details/xangodafroamerik0000fich/page/142/mode/2up? 

An English translation is provided by Strongman: 

“There is a gay god of death, Guédé Nibo, and in early November the whole country, every Haitian peasant, sings hymns to the gays— “masisi”—and rural family fathers perform ambivalent gestures at the front and back of their pants.”

Source: Strongman, Roberto. Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé (2019). p. 75

The lyrics of the song are described in Homosexualität und Literatur (Vol. 1):

“Als eine der wenigen Religionen verfuegt der Vaudou ueber eine homosexuelle Gottheit, den Totengott Guédé Nibo, und am Totensonntag singen die Vaudouglaeubigen in der Stadt und auf dem Land: Guédé Nibo Massissi, Guédé Nibo Massissi! – schwuler Guédé Nibo, schwuler Guédé Nibo!”

Source: Fichte, Hubert. Homosexualität und Literatur: Polemiken. Germany, S. Fischer, 1987. Vol. 1. p. 146

An English translation is provided in The Gay Critic: 

“Voodoo is one of the few religions to espouse a homosexual divinity, the god of the dead Guédé Nibo, and on Dead Sunday the believers chant, throughout the city and in the countryside: Guédé Nibo Massissi! Guédé Nibo Massissi! – gay Guédé Nibo! gay Guédé Nibo!”

Source: Fichte, Hubert. 1996. The Gay Critic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. p. 118

Interestingly, Katherine Smith observed something similar in 2007, but the chant went “Gede Masisi!” not “Gede Nibo Masisi!”: 

“Gede mounts individuals as well as small marauding bands of vagabon who may pound on tombs and yell obscenities at the dead. In 2007, one such group of young men dressed in drag, fellated bones, and danced flamboyantly as the crowed cheered “Gede Masisi!” (Gay Gede!).”

Source: Smith, Katherine. "Dialoging with the urban dead in Haiti." Southern Quarterly 47.4 (2010): p. 83 

Hubert Fichte translated the word masisi as a schwul, meaning “gay”, but this is not accurate. Masisi is a slur that has been reclaimed by some within the Haitian LGBTQ community; really, la Communauté M / The M Community.

I have been using words that originate in the Western bourgeoisie, but these are not terms Haitians use to describe themselves - especially those oppressed by race and class. There are similarities between the word masisi and terms used in other non-Western cultures, such as hijra, bakla, okama, and fa'afafine.

As defined by Charlot Jeudy - the former president of KOURAJ who was killed in 2019: 

“…the societal definition of masisi is ‘acting as the female partner in a homosexual relationship.’ You can have muscular, manly M persons, but for Haitians, they cannot be called masisi. The word masisi has always been an insult. It makes people uncomfortable for us to use it, but in Haitian Creole, there is no other way for me to describe what I am.”

Source: https://cornbreadandcremasse.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/the-m-community-lgbt-courage-in-haiti/ 

It’s from 2002, but the documentary Des hommes et dieux contains interviews of several self-identified masisi. Some who identify as masisi would probably identify as “gay” if they were born in America; others would probably identify as “trans” - either, as binary trans women, or nonbinary transfems. Either way, masisi is not synonymous with “gay” or “transfeminine”, and it is important to remember that it’s been used as hate speech.

Fichte was surely incorrect in using words like masisi, schwul, and gay to describe Gede Nibo. There is no doubt in his attraction to women. The question is whether he could be described as “bisexual”, miks, or if he is purely heterosexual - not queer in any respect. 

Although he repeatedly describes Gede Nibo as “gay”, one of Fichte’s interviewees flatly denies this:

Ich frage:

—Ist Guédé Nibo Massissi? Schwul?

André antwortet:

—Das ist falsch. Die Götter, die aus zwei Teilen bestehen, sind keine starken Götter. Es sind gekaufte Götter. Man kauft die Göt­ter, um Sachen zu machen, die nicht gut sind.

Source: Fichte, Hubert, and Leonore Mau. 1984. Xango. Frankfurt: Fischer. p. 182 https://archive.org/details/xangodafroamerik0000fich/page/182/mode/2up 

Machine Translation: 

I ask: 

—Is Guédé Nibo masisi? Gay? 

André answers: 

—That is wrong. The gods that are made up of two parts are not strong gods. They are bought gods. People buy the gods to do things that are not good.

Because I do not speak German, I referred to Herbert Uerlings’ Poetiken der Interkulturalität for context:

Zu den gewichtigsten Ergebnissen seiner Feldforschung gehört, daß Guédé Nibo, einer der Totengötter, die alle traditionell mit Sexualität verbunden werden, ein Gott der Homo- und Bisexuellen ist. Sollte das zutreffen, so wäre es vermutlich eine neue ethnographische Erkenntnis über den Vaudou.47 Die weitergehende Frage an den Priester André, ob »Guédé Nibo Massissi« (X 182) sei, also schwul, wird verneint, aber auf eine Weise, bei der vor lauter offensichtlicher Abwehr Fichtes Vermutung praktisch bestätigt wird: »Das ist falsch. Die Götter, die aus zwei Teilen bestehen [bisexuell oder schwul sind — H.U.], sind keine starken Götter. Es sind gekaufte [schwache — H. U] Götter. Man kauft die Götter, um Sachen zu machen, die nicht gut sind« (X 182). Ein anderer, schwuler Priester dagegen sagt: »Es gibt Götter, die die Homosexuellen verachten, und andre, die sie lieben« (X 194).

Source: Uerlings, Herbert. Poetiken der Interkulturalität: Haiti bei Kleist, Seghers, Müller, Buch und Fichte. Vol. 92. Walter de Gruyter, 2013., p. 282

Machine Translation:

One of the most important findings of his field research is that Guédé Nibo, one of the gods of the dead, all of whom are traditionally associated with sexuality, is a god of homosexuals and bisexuals. If this is true, it would probably be a new ethnographic discovery about voodoo.47 The further question to the priest André as to whether "Guédé Nibo is Massissi" (X 182), i.e. gay, is answered in the negative, but in a way that practically confirms Fichte's assumption through sheer obvious defensiveness: "That is wrong. The gods who consist of two parts [bisexual or gay - H.U.] are not strong gods. They are bought [weak - H. U] gods. Gods are bought to do things that are not good" (X 182). Another, gay priest, on the other hand, says: "There are gods who despise homosexuals and others who love them" (X 194).

I do not know if Uerlings is correct in dismissing the interviewee as “defensive”, but I am grateful for his clarification of the phrase “aus zwei Teilen bestehen”.

Notably, the footnote on the same page states:  

47 Ich habe in der Literatur keinen Beleg dafür gefunden. Allerdings notiert Deren zu Guédé: »Er vertauscht die Geschlechter und zieht Frauen Männerkleider und Männern Frauenkleider an« (Der Tanz des Himmels mit der Erde, 1992, S. 128f.), und vermerkt in einer Fußnote: »Es wird zwar selten eindeutig ausgesprochen, aber häufig finden sich Hinweise darauf. daß es sich bei Guedé [sic!] um eine hermaphroditische Gottheit handelt, genau wie Legba« (a.a.O.).

Source: Uerlings, Herbert. Poetiken der Interkulturalität: Haiti bei Kleist, Seghers, Müller, Buch und Fichte. Vol. 92. Walter de Gruyter, 2013., p. 282

Machine Translation: 

47 I have found no evidence of this in the literature. However, Deren notes about Guédé: »He swaps the sexes and dresses women in men's clothes and men in women's clothes« (The Dance of Heaven and Earth, 1992, p. 128f.), and notes in a footnote: »Although it is rarely stated clearly, there are frequent indications that Guedé [sic!] is a hermaphroditic deity, just like Legba« (loc. cit.).

It is possible that the German Fichte was mistaken in describing Gede Nibo as queer, and that he mistook his lasciviousness for queer sexuality.

Notably, the Haitian author Milo Marcelin described Gede Nibo as queer in Mythologie Vodou (vol. 2): “Guédé Nibo, mystère mâle et femelle (hermaphrodite), est le protecteur des vivants et des morts.” Similar to the song “Masisi”, Marcelin describes another song that suggests Gede Nibo is himself queer. Naturally the song is sexually explicit, but you can find it in the source provided below, with one of the lyrics being “...Regarde la démarche de Guédé!”. 

Source: Marcelin, Milo. Mythologie Vodou: Rite Arada. 2 vols. Port-au-Prince: Les Editions Haitiennes, 1950. Vol. 2, p. 181 & p. 187 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mythologie_vodou_rite_arada/cjvXAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22Regarde+la+d%C3%A9marche+de+Gu%C3%A9d%C3%A9%22 

An English translation of this song can be found in: Conner, Randy P. Lundschien, and David Sparks. Queering Creole spiritual traditions: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender participation in African-inspired traditions in the Americas. Routledge, 2014, p. 63 https://books.google.com/books?id=5SINiF0fkqwC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63

A large section of Conner’s Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions describes “homoerotic, pansexual, and transgender aspects” of Gede Nibo. (p. 94). However, one interviewee denies an association between Gede Nibo and queer sexuality - that being, the Caucasian Houngan Mark Alexander "Aboudja" Moellendorf (p. 64) 

Source: Conner, Randy P. Lundschien, and David Sparks. Queering Creole spiritual traditions: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender participation in African-inspired traditions in the Americas. Routledge, 2014

Outside of the sources mentioned above, I have found little evidence that Gede Nibo is himself queer. Rather than Gede Nibo, I’ve found more evidence that the Erzulies are important to members of the aforementioned Haitian “M Community” (see bottom of this post). I have also seen claims that Gede Nibo sometimes cross dresses, but I’ve yet to find a reliable source for this. There are artistic renditions of him proudly displaying his sexuality, but I have yet to see any that show him in women’s clothing, or displaying queer sexuality.

It is possible that the authors listed above are correct in their assessment (except for Fichte, who was definitely wrong). However, there’s a lot of misinformation spread about the lwa outside of Haiti and New Orleans, which arises from foreigners misunderstanding the culture and traditions of Vodou. Since I have already made mistakes with Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte, I could be wrong about Gede Nibo too. If this is the case, I apologize for spreading misinformation about him being queer. 

It is also possible that the above was true at some point in the past, but not in the present. Afterall, Fichte and Marcelin wrote during the mid 20th century, and traditions evolve over time.

…Well, might as well start ranting about my Deviantart OC!

RANTING ABOUT MY DEVIANTART OC

This character’s name is “Port-au-Prince” - named after the capital of Haiti. 

Unlike the real-life Gede Nibo, “Port-au-Prince” is just gay, and a drag queen. His personality and interests are similar to Angel Dust, where he is openly gay and flamboyant in his mannerisms. As it is a slur, I have been avoiding the word masisi, but it is likely he would identify as part of the “M community”. Where Alastor is (presumably) the son and/or grandson of New Orleans Voodoo Queen(s), “Port-au-Prince” is a houngan - an extremely powerful one at that. His appearance and personality were inspired by the individuals featured in the documentaries Des hommes et dieux and Paris is Burning.

 I made this decision for these reasons: 

To integrate him into the pre-existing world of Hazbin Hotel, as a counterpart Angel Dust

To represent the Haitian “M community”, who experience intense prejudice and violence, but find sanctuary in Vodou

To differentiate him from the real-life Gede Nibo

As a tribute to the association between the Gede and gender/sexual queerness

Here’s a list of sources to back this third point: 

Nwokocha, Eziaku Atuama. Vodou en vogue: fashioning Black divinities in Haiti and the United States. UNC Press Books, 2023.

Conner, Randy P. Lundschien, and David Sparks. Queering Creole spiritual traditions: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender participation in African-inspired traditions in the Americas. Routledge, 2014

McAlister, Elizabeth A. "Love, sex, and gender embodied: The spirits of Haitian Vodou." Love, sex and gender in the world religions (2000): 129-146. https://africultures.com/love-sex-and-gender-embodied-the-spirits-of-haitian-vodou-5719

Smith, Katherine. "Dialoging with the urban dead in Haiti." Southern Quarterly 47.4 (2010): p. 83 

Hence, the decision to make “Port-au-Prince” a queer drag queen.

As a counterpart to Angel Dust, he has a dual gangster-ballroom/voguing theme to him, where he runs his own ballroom house. Although his roots are from Haiti, I think it would be interesting if he was part of the diaspora, where spent much of his human life in New York. This too helps integrate him into the pre-established world, where many characters are former humans who lived during different time periods of American history. It also establishes another parallel between him and Angel Dust, who is also from New York. I was picturing his house as being a mix of Black transfems (more broadly, feminine of center AMABs) and Black transmascs (more broadly, masculine of center AFABs), who are all former humans. They also double as a battle force that could be recruited in a similar manner to the Cannibals in Cannibal Town, where they have strong healing and fighting abilities. 

Port-au-Prince’s drag queen persona is inspired by Aaliyah as Queen of the Damned. In addition to Angel Dust, it would also be possible to establish a connection between him and Sally Mae, if she has any interest in drag. He is the adoptive son of the “Baron of the Dead” and “Gran Maman”, my other DeviantArt OCs who I drew here: https://www.deviantart.com/thegirlwhodidntsmile/art/Lavi-and-Lanmo-1073560801

This was inspired by the description provided by Roberto Strongman, where he writes: 

“In Vodou lore, Gédé Nibo is a young man who was killed violently. Therefore, he has a par­tic­u­lar association with ­those who die young. Once in the spirit realm, Bawon Samedi and Gran Brigit adopt him. In demeanor he is comical, lascivious, witty, and effeminate. In appearance, he is a dandy.”

Source: Strongman, Roberto. Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé (2019). p. 74

It would be imperative to run a concept like this by an expert on Haitian Vodou, to determine whether his portrayal is respectful or not. If it’s inoffensive, I think it would be cool if the three characters inspired by “Les Trois Esprits du Cimetiere” formed a “sexually complete” trinity: one male, one female, and one androgynous. But this may be problematic, as it could mislead audiences into thinking the real-life Gede Nibo is gay. Another approach would be to remove his drag queen persona, and make him a straight guy who has gay friends. Instead of Gede Nibo, the Erzulies could serve as inspiration for a character that embodies LGBTQ acceptance in Vodou.

RANTING ABOUT THE ERZULIES (EZILI DANTOR AND EZILI FREDA)

The Erzulies are important to the Haitian M Community - especially when accounting for race and class. Intense homophobia persists among the oppressed - who are denied access to higher education, and often understand sexuality/gender through religion. Those despised as masisi and madivin are tolerated in Vodou, where many houngans are themselves part of the M Community.

There is a fascinating documentary called Des hommes et dieux, which examines this very community. Several interviewees assert that Ezili Dantor has the power to make a person - male or female* - homosexual. It is for this reason that interviewees insist they were “born this way”, and that their parents - who might have otherwise rejected them - accept them as they are. I was particularly moved by statements from the interviewee Blondine, where the English captions read: “[My father] realized it came from voodoo. So he had to accept me. I’m like this because of the spirits that he’s serving. The loas decided I would be a girl. I was born this way.” 

Granted, one interviewee (the houngan named Fritzner who self identifies as masisi) rejects this belief, considering it blasphemous. Either way, it is unanimous that the Erzulies protect the M community. Those hated as masisi are loved by the lwa, become their houngans, and are called les enfants d’Erzulie - “Ezili’s children”. 

*I specify the category of sex, as the invisibility of “female masculinity” (including, masculine female homosexuality and the transmasculine spectrum) rears its ugly head. The “M Community” has language for transfems and feminine gay men; there are no equivalent terms for transmascs and masculine of center lesbians. As such, I have struggled to find information/research about the inverse phenomenon of “inverted” or “radically masculine” identifying members of “the feminine sex”; certainly not within the Black proletariat. Haiti is by no means unique in this regard. This disparity is found in many cultures all over the world - especially among the oppressed classes.

In any case, Erzulies are not just important to those of “the masculine sex”, but those of “the feminine sex” as well. Eziaku Nwokocha documents her personal experience as a Black queer femme with Ezili Dantor in The ‘Queerness’ of Ceremony. Zora Neale Hurston also briefly mentioned the importance of Ezili Freda to women who “tend toward the hermaphrodite” (i.e., with queer tendencies) in Tell My Horse. Unfortunately, I have struggled to find information about the Haitian equivalent of studs, aggressives, trans men, etc… due to the aforementioned issue of invisibility. Notably, none of the women at the temple Nwokocha visited were masculine-presenting, except for one visitor who dressed in red to honor the masculine lwa Ogou.

Previously I had been under the impression that Erzulie Dantor was associated with lesbians while Erzulie Freda was associated with the transfeminine spectrum. Just, a completely false dichotomy! WOW is there a lot of misinformation spread about Vodou! The Erzulies are associated with the transfeminine spectrum, as they protect femininity in all its manifestations. In addition to Black lesbians/bisexual/queer women, Erzulie Dantor is important to Black transfems, as she is depicted as a dark-skinned Black woman. That’s why people in the Haitian M Community love her, as a goddess of love, luck, and protection. For these reasons, I think it would be really cool to try to work Erzulie-inspired character(s) into this fictional world; granted, it presents more of a challenge to fit them into this setting, since they are not spirits of the dead. The easiest way to do so would be to have one of the Erzulies replace Mother Mary, if Mother Mary does not exist in the fictional mythology of Hazbin Hotel.

If you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend watching Anne Lescot & Laurence Magloire's documentary Of Men and Gods / Des hommes et dieux (2002). It’s available on Kanopy for free, and for rent Vimeo. Additionally, Eziaku Nwokocha, Roberto Strongman, and Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley have written several books and papers on this topic. Here are a few sources that can be accessed online:

Tinsley, Omise’eke Natasha. “Songs for Ezili: Vodou Epistemologies of (Trans) Gender.” Feminist Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 2011, pp. 417–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23069911. Accessed 4 Aug. 2024. 

Strongman, Roberto. "Cross-Gender Identifications in Vodou."  In Defying Binarism: Gender Dynamics in Caribbean Literature and Culture. Virginia University Press. Ed. Maria Cristina Fumagalli. https://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.blks.d7/files/sitefiles/people/strongman/NewCrossGenderIdentificationsVodou.pdf 

Nwokocha, Eziaku. “The ‘Queerness’ of Ceremony: Possession and Sacred Space in Haitian Religion.” Journal of Haitian Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 2019, pp. 71–90. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26926664. Accessed 6 Aug. 2024. https://eziakunwokocha.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/The-Queerness-of-Ceremony.pdf 

SIDE NOTE:

Rereading this, I fear I may come across as judgemental of writers like Fichte and Conner. That is not my intent! I do not think it is fair to judge these authors harshly. It is easy to take the internet for granted. I think these authors did the best they could with the technology that was available to them, but mistakes could have still been made. The fault does not lie on them, but myself for having been careless in my research.