#as a society we need more evil queer women. it improves the world

[fourteenfifteen]

does anybody remember. hella varal

[lightinalexandria]

Dictatorship vs Theocracy: The Lesser of Two Evils?

August 11th, 2021 اغسطس ١١

If you were reading this post in Arabic from me as an Egyptian journalist, or even in English, and the police found it...in the best case scenario I'm brought down to the station, "scared straight" and let off with a promise never to criticize the govt again. But I’ve heard of lots of scenarios anecdotally, as recently as 2 years ago, where activists just disappear. Want to know what life would have looked like in a dystopian alternate universe 30 years after Trump succeeded in his coup and never left? That said, the way the situation is viewed by politically moderate Egyptians and Americans -if such a thing still exists- is so very different, and that’s the real point of this post.

After the Egyptian revolution in 2011, when Mubarak left, from what I’ve read and heard, there were 3 main paths forward. The most exciting was Egyptian civil society fielding an organized enough field of candidates to become viable as a governing power. The second was the Muslim Brotherhood candidates, an ultra-religious Salafism-influenced theocratic organization. The third was an interim military govt. That thin strand of spiderweb hope for civil society fell apart, and someone who is much more versed in Egyptian history and culture than me no doubt has an explanation. The first real election after the revolution saw Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood elected, and a scant year after the military coup that brought Sisi to power, where he remains almost 10 years later.

Okay, you could have read that from a history article. Here are stories from friends on the ground, though; I know at least 2 Egyptians in my circle that would have FOR sure voted for Biden over Trump, but have come to look positively at Sisi. One of them was active in student protests AGAINST Sisi during the revolution; he still has the scars where one of Sisi’s military police shot him in the face during a demonstration. That said, he’s terrified of what a theocratic govt. under the Muslim Brotherhood might look like. As a queer Egyptian, it’s already a risk to have liaisons with men, and you can still be arrested, but that’s way ahead of the Salafi death penalty. He also carries so much trauma from the year after the revolution without any functioning govt -standing outside his house during looting with a sword because civilians don’t have guns and all the police ran away- that to have a strong govt feels like a relief. Of course, of course he hates the lack of free press, but puts it way higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of Societal Needs than most of us Americans would.

The other Egyptian in my circle who supports Sisi sees the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat to Egypt because their primary loyalty is to a pan-African Islamic caliphate and not the state of Egypt. She points to a very controversial Ethipoian dam project at the mouth of the Nile that was green lighted during Morsi’s short reign as Muslim Brotherhood leader of Egypt. Ethiopia is building it, and Egyptians are furious because the Nile flows through Egypt after Ethiopia. She also -and I see strong echoes of my Chinese friends thinking- points to Sisi’s anti-poverty programs as strong and necessary authoritarian measures. Sisi has starting razing unplanned buildings and slums, including in my city of Alexandria, and forcing residents to move to new apt. buildings in different parts of the city. They cannot sell the new apartments for 20 years. Of course many residents are delighted at the new digs; TV this summer is oozing with govt propaganda videos showing sad Egyptians with sad music in slums and happy Egyptians with happy music in new flats. And…residents don’t have a choice to move. In Alexandria that land under the slums has been sold to a Saudi conglomerate to develop a water park.

For me it’s helpful to think of gov’t philosophy in different countries as reflecting family structures; in Egypt, the man is the undisputed head of the household, legally and socially. We cringe at paternalism of Europeans towards their colonies now, and I don’t have the full perspective to say how similar or different it is from intra-national paternalism like this, but there’s definitely a relation.

A final note, about the economy under Sisi. If you suspected a military dictator might not prioritize the lower and middle classes, you’d be right. (You could argue the housing program I mention above does mean he’s prioritizing them, but maybe wait to reserve judgement). Simply put, the army has taken over the economy. I’d say it follows the playbook of nationalization that other socialist or communist govt has followed, but in so many sectors, it seems like the army is just undercutting local businesses. All the army brass is involved in running disparate businesses; telecom, mango export, apartment construction. The army companies don’t pay taxes as a national subsidiary like other Egyptian private companies, so they can undercut most prices. I’m surprised it hasn’t produced a seething mass of disgruntled Egyptian businesspeople ready to fund another revolution, which makes me think there must be some sweetheart deals in the back room.

And what has Sisi done about the pollution, overcrowding and generally lower living standards in a city like Cairo? Invested in improving local infrastructure, pollution mitigation technology/funding? Nope. He’s building new cities for upper-middle and upper class Egyptians to move to. Not neighborhoods. Cities, in the desert, like a pharaoh of old. Look up “New Cairo” or “New Alamein.” I’ve been there, it’s spooky, like a fancy mall that goes on forever. Big middle finger to the broke, un-educated masses staying behind. I guess you could make an argument for the benefits of lessening over-crowding. Maybe Sisi has a grand plan to swoop in once the old cities empty out a bit and work some magic. But I don’t think so.

The Muslim Brotherhood might have done more to improve at least the economic conditions of Egypt’s more vulnerable citizens. I don’t think they would have built the separate cities, or involved the army as a business octopus in every lucrative industry. But then, the very little social freedom Egyptian women enjoy would be cut back another 40 years, maybe to full body niqabs and mandatory accompaniment by a male family member. Public displays of affection of any kind, even between opposite sex couples, banned in any sort of public space. I want to be clear that the Muslim Brotherhood represents one far end of the Islamic spectrum in the same way that ultra-orthodox Zionist Judaism represents one far end of the Jewish spectrum, one that has little to no relation to the way I understand and practice Judaism. I’ve had many discussions with friends here -who are simulateously progressive feminists and devout Muslims- on the 5 pillars of Islam, the way they support a reflective and fulfilled life, and the way more extreme interpretations twist the original intention.

To bring it back around, Egypt is now a military dictatorship, and has both repressed dissent and consolidated economic power so effectively I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The world is such a very complicated and Machiavellian place. From the American perspective with a free press, democratic-ish elections, social freedom, a stable govt and a booming economy, of course Sisi’s dictatorship seems irredeemably, one sidedly terrible. But what if you had to choose just 2 or 3 of those 5 things? Of course us dreamers and activists want to push for all of them, and we should, but what if the only organized factions capable of governing brought only some of those benefits to the table. What would you choose?

[itsclydebitches]

So I came across this take on twitter on the topic of Catra/Adora recently, and it's been gnawing at me. My knowledge of the series is patchy at best, so I was curious to hear your thoughts about this position.

***

At the risk of getting some intense backlash for this, I absolutely agree. Anyone who followed me during Ilia’s reveal knows that I’m very critical of villain-queer relationships. Not that we can’t ever have that, but in a media landscape where queer rep is still so comparatively rare, I’m wary of prioritizing those toxic relationships in the name of “authenticity.” We already get enough heat for being “unnatural” and “damaging.” I’ve lost the article now, but this morning I literally read another headline about how we’ve apparently destroyed the sanctity of marriage, gays are evil, they’re a threat to society, blah blah blah. That shit is still very, very prominent. So, in this climate, I’m really not a promoter of “This woman tried to kill her love’s parents and send her back to her abuser! This one has been trying to kill her and her friends for ages! How romantic!” 

Because - not to get into a huge deconstruction of She-Ra - Catra absolutely continues the cycle of abuse. Is she an abuse victim? Yes. Does she then go on to abuse others? Yes. Sadly, that’s fairly common and a lot of Adora’s growth lately stems from realizing that no matter how many times she begs Catra to stop, she won’t. Some of the reasons why this pairing is so popular despite Catra’s treatment includes: 

They belong to a children’s TV show where the expectation is that, no matter how horrific you might be, you’re always redeemable. A “real” hero never abandons someone and if a villain doesn’t die then they should be forgiven once a hero cares for them (a la Hordak) 

Catra is an abusive victim and we spend a good chunk of the story following her conflicts, not just Adora’s. She is presented as incredibly sympathetic and thus it’s easy to miss/ignore how she’s become the new Shadow Weaver. Catra was introduced as the victim and that’s how she stays in many viewers’ minds, no matter what she might do now that she’s finally gotten power over others 

Coinciding with that sympathetic portrayal and the point about kids’ shows, Catra is very much set up as someone who will eventually be redeemed (especially at the end of this last season). Everyone expects and pictures the day when Catra will be good again and then yay, she can get together with Adora. That expectation and knowledge of how storytelling/TV shows work - of course this sympathetic villain who our hero adores will be redeemed! - colors every action Catra takes. The viewer is primed to forgive her from the get-go 

The fact that, as the tweeter says, there’s absolutely an argument that they had/have feelings for one another. The desire to see them together, again, makes it easy (or at least alluring) to just ignore all the stuff potentially getting in the way of that

But from Adora’s perspective - from the perspective of the canonical show - Catra is a villain. She’s become an abuser. She continually blames Adora for both the abuse they suffered as kids and has spent seasons seeking her destruction, going so far as to risk their entire world purely because she couldn’t stand Adora being right: 

“Adora is right? Adora gets everything she wants! But not this time. This time, I am going to win. I don’t care what it takes. We are opening that portal now.” 

Catra is an incredibly complex character who has equally complex baggage to work through. She deserves to come out of this and find happiness. However, that doesn’t mean that she likewise deserves to get back what she herself destroyed. Her happiness should not stem from the romantic love of a woman she’s done horrific things to. As the tweeter says, go wild with the fanworks, but I wouldn’t want them to be made canon in the show. That would require everyone ignoring the staggering amount of damage Catra has done and sending the horrific message that you should put up with/accept/forgive even the most heinous crimes against you (especially since She-Ra only has one more season to go. There isn’t time to redeem Catra and get her together with Adora in a healthy way). Adora is the hero. She’s the character the audience is supposed to look to. So if she walks happily into an absolutely toxic and arguably abusive relationship, that doesn’t teach people to be forgiving in the general sense. It teaches them that the people who treat you the worst are also the ones who love you the most which... no. So many kid(esque) shows simply don’t take the complexity of abuse and forgiveness into account when writing a Pure and Good Hero who Always Forgives (though thus far She-Ra has done a damn good job). This is one piece of how people - particularly women - learn that giving all of themselves and receiving nothing but harm in return is not just normal, but supposedly romantic. Just keep trying! Metaphorically kill yourself trying to fix someone who isn’t willing to put in any work to improve! You’ll get there eventually! And if you don’t, well, that one time they cried was really heartbreaking, right? Just focus on that and ignore that 95% of the time they’re being cruel at best and trying to kill you at worst. The ending of “And the abuser/abusee lived happily ever after” teaches that if victims aren’t finding that happy ending for themselves, they just need to sacrifice more to achieve it. A fictional happy ending is dangled like a very real carrot in front of anyone who sees themselves in Adora/Catra. “Oh. This isn’t cruelty. This is passion. She needs help! If I just stick around and try harder then I can achieve that too.” To say nothing of, again, the message is sends about queer relationships in general. They’re inherently damaging. 

“Fixing” villains/damaged characters via the Power of Love is hugely alluring. I love that shit in my fandom. But that doesn’t mean it should be perpetuated in the canon and presented as an excellent form of queer rep. There’s a Grand Canyon’s width of difference between antagonist characters who are given excellent redemption arcs and thus may have a relationship later on (someone like Zuko) and villain characters who remain villains up until the last second when they’re “redeemed” and all their horrors are immediately forgotten (someone like Ilia and potentially Catra depending on how Season 5 goes). 

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

What do you think Napoleon would feel about the Le Pens? Like I know he’d hate their guts but the extent 👀

God fuck the Le Pens. I feel dirty thinking about them. (Though weirdly funny that Marine kicked her dad out of FN. Like you know you’re too deep down the rabbit hole of fuckery when Marine kicks you out. [and yeah, of course it’s all part of her image cleaning up gimmick. Wherein I’m sure she thinks the same as him, but is trying to “soften” the image of the party. And, based on the last election, it’s working. So that’s horrifying.]) All this to say: fuck the Le Pens; white supremacy etc. 

Anyway - assuming we’re still going for “Napoleon from 1815 woke up August 22, 2020″ base for our thought experiments here. 

Overall, yeah he’d think them short sighted, idiotic, and would probably have some elegant-yet-crude insults for them in Corsican. Let us take a brief, and not at all comprehensive, stroll down the Le Pens (and FN by default)’s terrible policies. Then I can scrub my brain out because they are absolutely foul people. 

behind a cut because it’s long. 

Economics: First off, Napoleon and I are the same in that we neither know anything about economics. He did not have a firm grasp on how the economy worked. Which I sympathise with, because it seems very fake and made up. 

Anyway, he did a lot of modernization, raised taxes, created a lot of public works programs to stimulate the economy and improve connectivity (gotta build all the roads and canals. Actually though, as a public infrastructure keener, I support this). He did lay the foundation for the centralized bank of France. (Something Biddle would get all hot and bothered over. Nothing sexier than centralized banks.)

Napoleon also introduced a whole loan system for businesses to try and keep them afloat and improve local industry. He was keen on protecting property rights, um, tried to regulate the currency to protect it against inflation. Idk, he did other things that I’m not going to get into. 

Comparing Napoleon’s hot economic takes from 1815 to 2020? A bit hard. So I’m going to guestimate on this. 

I think, once he understood how the world functions now, he would be pro-globalization and the various free trade agreements that are in place (CETA, PCAs etc). He might disagree with details therein, but the broad philosophy is one I think he’d support. 

I don’t know if he would be pro-single currency. I suspect he might be anti-the Euro, while still supporting the broad intents of the EU. 

He would support a strong public sector - so government controlled postal service, utilities, schools etc. In that, and the anti-Euro view, he would align with Marine, at least. Not sure about her POS father. 

No idea what his views on the Havana Charter would be. Probably mixed. 

EU: I’ve touched on this before, I think Napoleon would be pro-EU, over all. He’d just think France should be the hegemonic power. Why isn’t France making all the decisions? This is dumb. Who does Germany think they are? Etc. Therefore, he would disagree with the Le Pens who think the EU is the anti-christ and the cause of everything bad that ever happened in France (I exaggerate, but they do blame the EU for a lot of things so you know, it’s not that much of a stretch).

Immigration: This is where they would diverge significantly. Like apples and moldy toast kind of different. I’ve touched on Napoleon’s immigration policy before, so I’m not going to wade into it again. But yeah, needless to say Napoleon would be like “let everyone come. They want to come to France? They are French. More is better. The end.” 

The only thing is, he was very pro-assimilation. Not really into the “patchwork quilt” approach to the philosophy (and implementation) of multiculturalism. Which, to be fair, is a very modern view and not something I would expect anyone from 1815 to agree with, or consider a general good approach to dynamic, multicultural societies. 

But yeah, the Le Pens whole moratorium on immigration, hatred of anyone foreign, that would be an anathema to Napoleon. He would vehemently disagree with that stance. Napoleon believed alloys were stronger. You took different people, boiled them down, and melded them into a unified French identity. That was his Hot Take on the matter. Again, pro-assimilation, which is an inherently conservative stance by 21st century standards, but a very average stance by early 19th century standards. His immigration and citizenship views were overall liberal for the time. 

Indeed, the whole creation of a unified French identity was in its infancy during his life. He contributed heavily to it, but for his lifetime, identity was strongly linguistic and regional. You’re Gascon before you’re French, you’re Basque before you’re either French or Spanish, that sort of thing. 

And of course, his views on this were heavily informed by his own experience and identity as a Frenchman and how it was received, or not, by his own people, as well as other monarchs and countries. (Tsar Alexander liked to brag that he spoke better French than the Emperor of France. And I believe the Times once called Napoleon a “Mediterranean mongrel.” Charming. So, he had a fun and exciting adventure in European class, ethnic and racial politics of the early 19th century.)

Napoleon would also disagree with the Le Pens that citizenship and nationality are indivisible. He was into the whole “if you decide you are French then you are French, no matter which side of the Rhine you were born on”. 

Secularism: They’d actually probably mostly agree on this. In that religion has no part or place in government and there should be a clear and strong separation of church and state. 

The banning of religious clothing, though, I don’t think Napoleon would support that. I would argue that he’d think it infringed on personal rights too much, and he was keen on protecting those. Like, his policy towards integrating France’s Jewish population was to try and assimilate them, yes, because he viewed everything as being consumed by the monolith that was the French Empire. But he wasn’t like “no wearing a tallit or kippah.”

Abortion: Guys, Napoleon is a culturally Catholic man from 1815 who thought women’s crowing jewel were her children and that France really needed to increase its overall population. I think we can all figure out what his views on abortion would be. Marine is pro-legality of abortion, but she personally is like “it’s eViL and a serious MoRaL IsSuE” etc. 

Gay Rights: Napoleon’s whole political approach was to bring in the people on the margins and normalize them (assimilate; one of us, one of us) as a means to increase the base of the population who would support him. As he viewed marriage as a strictly secular, civil ceremony, and not a religious one, there could be a possibility of slowly talking him around to it. That said, he also viewed marriage as a declaration of intent to make many babies (for his army). I don’t think he’d be pro-queer couples adopting, no matter what. So, who knows. 

That said, he wasn’t like “lock up the gays”. And as gay marriage is established in France currently, I don’t know if he’d be pro-abolition since it’s mostly a popular/accepted law and he was all about that sweet, sweet public approval rating. 

So if he came around to it, it wouldn’t be for altruistic reasons. At the same time, he wouldn’t be like “make it illegal”. He was very “w/e just show up to work on time Cambaceres, jesus.” (Cambaceres: It’s midnight, sire. This isn’t normal work hours. Napoleon: SAYS WHO???) 

Women in Politics: Well he’s obviously 100% against that. Ladies belong at home with the bebes. Le Pens, obviously, aren’t. Though Jean, I think, is like Trump where he’s pro his daughter being in politics (until she chucked him out of FN), but he would expect his wife to be a Proper Housewife. That weird conservative man thing about the role of wives and daughters. 

-

There’s my fly-over guestimation of Napoleon v Le Pens

It’s very, very hard to figure out what Napoleon, a man born in 1769 and died in 1821, would think about politics, economics and society in 2020. I tried to gauged based on his broad, philosophical views and how he acted as ruler. But he was also someone who was very analytical and would be capable of understanding the world as it is today and the realities that are in place. He might find them off putting or bizarre (ladies as heads of states?? what about your children??) but he was an imminently pragmatic man who would look at a situation and go “alright, this is the reality of the system and society I am now in” and would adjust himself accordingly. 

In the end, trying to figure out how a man from 1815 would react to today’s politics is very difficult, if not outright impossible. His understanding of what liberal meant, what conservative meant, etc. were so different to our understanding that I would never place him in one camp. He had changing, dynamic views, and that would be reflected in his understanding of politics in 2020. 

Overall, I think he would disagree with a lot of the stances of the Le Pens. Would he hate them? No. Because Napoleon didn’t really hate people based on their political views. He saw too much of the Revolution to go for extreme personal reactions to political stances; also he was too much a pragmatist and understood that you never know who might be an ally in the future. 

Napoleon might look down on the Le Pens, he might find them personally disgusting, he might view them as stupid (honestly, he’d probably just think they’re dumb and quickly move on), but he wouldn’t hate them. 

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Because this is tumblr, I must now declare my political stance because I was too calm in most of that assessment. 

1. Fuck the Le Pens & Front Nationale 

2. Nationalism is spooky and I am always suspect when it comes up in political discourse in the year of our lord 2020 

3. I am bi and non-binary, which isn’t actually a political stance (or a personality), but tumblr is Like That so I thought I’d include it. 

4. I support: lgbtq rights; trans rights; universal health care; easy and open access to education; improved access to education at primary school levels (because that’s a huge impact on people); ACAB; separation of church and state; prison reform/some form of abolishment - I’m still thinking through my views on this and how it should be approached; land back; Aboriginal and Treaty Rights; immigration; no more kids in cages jesus christ; don’t drink bleach; democracy is good, punch fascists etc. etc. 

[hms-chill]

Today’s @rwrb-social-isolation prompt is to talk about something from history we love, so I did a deep, deep dive into a near-utopian colony headed by a man who was, truly, an icon. A Byronic hero two hundred years before Byron himself. It got rambly, but at this point, who’s surprised. Please enjoy.

All us good little American drones know the story of how white people came to America. They settled at Plymouth, and they struggled and struggled for years, but with the help of friendly natives, they finally succeeded and murdered millions with biowarfare and also guns built the great country we live in today.

Were there other, non-Plymouth colonies? Jamestown, of course, the Macho Dream that men who are really into WWII love to talk about. Boring. Let’s talk about a fun colony. 

Let’s talk about Merrymount, a town founded on a distrust of Christian Puritanism, the abolition of slavery, popular revolt, equality with natives, a pagan beliefs. Sound fake? See attached bibliography.

History, huh? Let’s get into it.

To talk about Merrymount, we have to talk about Thomas Morton, the Lord of Misrule. He was born in 1579 in Devon, England, a region despised by the more religious parts of the country for still hanging onto some of England’s traditional pagan practices. It was particularly known for celebrating the land and its guiding principles of neighborliness and quietness (the belief that keeping peace was more important than nearly anything else). We don’t know much about his family, but we’re pretty sure he was the second son to a middle-class family, largely because he went to law school in London (something that wouldn’t have been affordable for lower class folks, but that an older son wouldn’t have had to do under the laws of primogeniture). 

The London Morton arrived in was overcrowded, and bouts of plague were not uncommon. The population was booming, and tensions were rising between the deeply Christian Reform movement and the more Pagan Renaissance. In particular, we saw the rise of Puritanism and Separatism, both of which were extreme versions of Christianity (a la those pilgrims we all cosplayed every Thanksgiving in elementary school), and both of which Morton hated. From what we can tell, he was first an observer, and his coursework would have taught him to question what he was told and to argue his own points and beliefs.

Following his time in school and his general disillusionment with established Christian society, he became a traveling lawyer for a time. In his late 30s, Morton began working for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a major investor in Plymouth, founder of Maine, and “Father of English Colonization in North America”. He first traveled to America in 1622, and in his book, he declared “The more I looked, the more I liked it. And when I had more seriously considered of the beauty of the place, with all her fair endowments, I did not think that in all the known world it could be paralleled”. However, he was back in England in 1623, complaining of Puritan intolerance. 

Following a dissolved engagement, Morton once again set sail for America in 1624, aboard the ship Unity under command of his friend Captain Richard Wollaston and accompanied by 30 indentured servants. They eventually were given land by and began trading with the Algonquin tribes, who were native to the region and whom Morton found more civilized than the Puritans in Plymouth. They named their town, which is now Quincy, MA, “Mount Wollaston”. 

From Morton’s book, we can see that he got to know native culture relatively well. He attended Algonquin dinners and funerals. He learned at least some of the language, and he celebrated their respect for their elders and general family structure. During this time he also had his first interaction with Plymouth, which went much less well than his interactions with Algonquin tribes. He declared that he “found the Massachusetts Indians more full of humanity than the Christians”, and it is after this meeting that he began to furnish native tribes with powder and shot for their guns, often when English colonists couldn’t get any. Needless to say, he doesn’t come off particularly well in Plymouth’s writing about him.

By 1626, Mount Wollaston was booming. Colonists tired of Plymouth’s harsh rules were flocking to the more liberal town when Morton found out that Wollaston had been selling indentured servants as slaves. Outraged, he encouraged them to rebel, and Wollaston fled, leaving Morton the sole leader (or “host”, the term he prefered) of the newly renamed Merrymount (or “Ma-re Mount, which is a pun on the Latin for “ocean”).

(That’s right, this man got control of a town, declared himself just a host, and then renamed it based on a nerdy pun. an icon.)

Merrymount was, generally, from most sources I can find, a pretty chill place to be. People were declared equal, and there was a pretty high degree of integration with Algonquin tribes. Though Morton did do what he could to encourage the Algonquin peoples to settle into a more English lifestyle, he did so not by force, but by providing them with free salt to use in preserving food, therefore negating the need for a nomadic lifestyle. Which... pressuring people to give up their way of life isn’t great. But doing it this way is a lot better than the way that pretty much every other colonizer was doing it. 

The real pinacle of the integration of English and Algonquin peoples was a May Day Celebration. Pretty much everyone celebrated the start of spring, as it meant that you’d survived the winter and life in general would likely start to improve with the warmer weather. May Day was both a celebration of springtime and a unifying holiday, a time when the different cultures came together and often a time when English men would begin to woo Algonquin women. The Puritans of Plymouth called it Bacchic and evil, so I can only assume it was a generally good time. 

However, by 1628, it was all too much for Plymouth. Morton’s general chill vibe, his trading with natives (and the threat it posed to Plymouth’s monopoly), Merrymount’s integration with Algonquin tribes, and just generally the disregard for Puritan ways all exploded when, in celebration of May Day, Merrymount erected an eighty-foot maypole. 

Now, I know eighty feet is hard to visualize. Especially if you’re from somewhere that uses the metric system. But an average story of a building is about ten feet. So just... think of an eight story building. This thing was MASSIVE. It’s as tall as my freshman year dorm. It was clearly visible from Plymouth, and it was the final straw. Morton was arrested and left to die on a rock that could only generously be called an island.

He was back by fall of 1629, but found Merrymount in ruins and a particularly harsh winter greeted him that year, and he was shipped back to England in 1630, a voyage that almost killed him. 

By 1631, he was back in the game suing the Massachusetts Bay Company, the political and financial backers of the Plymouth Puritans. He won in 1635, cutting off much of Plymouth’s English support and causing many to leave it for settlements in Connecticut. 

His book, New English Canaan published in 1637, launched him into celebrity. In 1643, he tried to return to Massachusetts, but was turned away upon arrival. He was exiled to Maine, where he passed away at the age of 71.

And that’s Thomas Morton! I first heard about his story in A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski, but I couldn’t remember enough/didn’t find anything in other sources to establish the queer context for Merrymount other than its rejection of Puritanism. 

Attached bibliography (not formatted correctly, because fuck the MLA and the APA).

General overview of his life

Morton’s book, New English Canaan

Spunky bio largely focused on Merrymount/the maypole

Spunky bio two: Maypole boogaloo

His wikipedia, which is just nice and readable

[if-only-angels-could-prevail]

“American Things” by Tony Kushner

Summer is the season for celebrating freedom, summer is the time when we can almost believe it is possible to be free. American education conditions us for this expectation; school's out! The climate shift seductively whispers emancipation. Warmth opens up the body and envelops it. The body in summer is most easily at home in the world. This is true even when the summer is torrid. I have lived half my life in Louisiana and half in New York City. I know from torrid summers.

On my seventh birthday, midsummer 1968, my mother decorated my cake with sparklers she'd saved from the Fourth of July. This, I thought, was extraordinary, fantastic, sparklers spitting and smoking, dangerous and beautiful atop my birthday cake. In one indelible, ecstatic instant my mother completed a circuit of identification for me, melding two iconographies, of self and of liberty: of birthday cake, delicious confectionery emblem of maternal enthusiasm about my existence, which enthusiasm I shared; and of the nighttime fireworks of pyro-romantic Americana, fireworks-liberty-light which slashed across the evening sky, light which thrilled the heart, light which exclaimed loudly in the thick summer air, light which occasionally tore off fingers and burned houses, the fiery fierce explosive risky light of Independence, of Freedom.

Stonewall, the festival day of lesbian and gay liberation, is followed closely by the Fourth of July; they are exactly one summer week apart. The contiguity of these two festivals of freedom is important, at least to me. Each adds piquancy and meaning to the other. In the years following my 7th birthday I had lost some of my enthusiasm for my own existence, as most queer kids growing up in a hostile world will do. I'd certainly begun to realize how unenthusiastic others, even my parents, would be if they knew I was gay. Such joy in being alive as I can now lay claim to has been returned to me largely because of the successes of the political movement which began, more or less officially, 25 years ago on that June night in the Village. I've learned how absolutely essential to life freedom is.

Lesbian and gay freedom is the same freedom celebrated annually on the Fourth of July. Of this I have no doubt; my mother told me so, back in 1963, by putting sparklers on that cake. She couldn't have made her point more powerfully if she'd planted them on my head. Hers was a gesture we both understood, though at the time neither could have articulated it; "This fantastic fire is yours." Mothers and fathers should do that for their kids: give them fire, and link them proudly and durably to the world in which they live.

One of the paths down which my political instruction came was our family seder. Passover, too, is a celebration of Freedom in sultry, intoxicating heat (Passover actually comes in the spring but in Louisiana the distinction between spring and summer was never clear). Our family read from Haggadahs written by a New Deal Reform rabbinate which was unafraid to draw connections between Pharaonic and modern capitalist exploitations; between the exodus of Jews from Goshen and the journey toward civil rights for African-Americans; unafraid to make the yearning which Jews have repeated for thousands of years a democratic dream of freedom for all peoples. It was impressed upon us, as we sang "America the Beautiful" at the seder's conclusion, that the dream of millennia was due to find its ultimate realization not in Jerusalem but in this country.

The American political tradition to which my parents made me an heir is mostly an immigrant appropriation of certain features and promises of our Constitution, and of the idea of democracy and federalism. This appropriation marries morally and ideologically indeterminate freedom to the more strenuous specific mandates of justice. It is the aggressive, unapologetic, progressive liberalism of the 30s and 40s, a liberalism strongly spiced with socialism, trade unionism and the ethos of internationalism and solidarity.

This liberalism at its best held that citizenship was bestowable on everyone, and sooner or later it would be bestowed. Based first and foremost on reason, and then secondarily on protecting certain articles of faith such as the Bill of Rights, democratic process would eventually shift power from the mighty to the many, in whose hands, democratically and morally speaking, it belongs. Over the course of 200 years, brave, visionary activists and ordinary, moral people had carved out a space, a large sheltering room from which many were now excluded, but which was clearly intended to be capable of multitudes. Within the space of American Freedom there was room for any possibility. American Freedom would become the birthplace of social and economic Justice.

Jews who came to America had gained entrance into this grand salon, as had other immigrant groups: Italians, Irish. Black people, Chicanos and Latinos, Asian-Americans would soon make their own ways, I was told, as would women, as would the working class and the poor -- it could only be a matter of time and struggle.

People who desired sex with people of their own gender, trans-gender people, drag kings and drag queens, deviants from heterosexual normality were not discussed. There was identity, and then there was illness.

I am nearly 38, and anyone who's lived 38 years should have made generational improvements on the politics of his or her parents. For any gay man or lesbian since Stonewall, the politics of homosexual enfranchisement is part of what is to be added to the fund of human experience and understanding that we pass on to the next generation-upon which we hope improvements will be made.

The true motion of freedom is to expand outward. To say that lesbian and gay freedom is the same freedom celebrated annually on the Fourth of July is simply to say that queer and other American freedoms have changed historically, generally in a healthy direction (with allowances for some costly periods of faltering, including recently), and must continue to change if they are to remain meaningful. No freedom that fails to grow will last.

Lesbians and gay men of this generation have added homophobia to the consensus list of social evils: poverty, racism, sexism, exploitation, the ravaging of the environment, censorship, imperialism, war. To be a progressive person is to believe that there are ways to actively intervene against these evils. To be a progressive person is to resist Balkanization, tribalism, separatism; to be progressive is to seek out connection. I am homosexual, and this ought to make me consider how my experience of the world, as someone who is not always welcome, resembles that of others, however unlike me, who have had similar experiences. I demand to be accorded my rights by others; and so I must be prepared to accord to others their rights. The truest characteristic of freedom is generosity, the basic gesture of freedom is to include, not to exclude.

That there would be a reasonably successful movement for lesbian and gay civil rights was scarcely conceivable a generation ago. In spite of these gains, much of the social progress which to my parents seemed a foregone conclusion has not yet been made, and much ground has been lost. Will racism prove to be more intractable, finally, than homophobia? Will the hatred of women, gay and straight, continue to find new and more violent forms of expression, and will gay men and women of color remain doubly, or triply oppressed, while white gay men find greater measures of acceptance, simply because they are white men?

The tensions which have defined American history and American political consciousness have most often been those existing between the margin and the center, the many and the few, the individual and society, the dispossessed and the possessors. It is a peculiar feature of our political life that some of these tensions are frequently discussed and easily grasped, such as those existing between the states and the federal government, or between the rights of individuals and society's claims upon them; while others' tensions, especially those which are occasioned by the claims of marginalized peoples, are regarded with suspicion and fear. Listing the full catalog of these claims is sure to raise howls decrying "political correctness" from those who need desperately to believe that democracy is a simple thing.

Democracy isn't simple and it doesn't mean that majorities tyrannize minorities. We learned this a long time ago, from, among others, the Moses of that Jewish American Book of Exodus, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, or, in more recent times, from Thurgood Marshall. In these days of demographic shifts, when majorities are disappearing, this knowledge is particularly useful, and it needs to be expanded. There are in this country political traditions congenial to the idea that democracy is multicolored and multicultural and also multigendered, that democracy is about returning to individuals the fullest range of their freedoms, but also about the sharing of power, about the rediscovery of collective responsibility. There are in this country political traditions, from organized labor, from the civil-rights and black-power movements, from feminist and homosexual liberation movements, from movements for economic reform, which postulate democracy as a dynamic process. These traditions exist in opposition to those which make fixed fetishes of democracy and freedom, talismans for reaction.

These traditions, which constitute the history of progressive and radical America, have been shunted to the side in an attempt at revisionism that began during the McCarthy era. Over the course of American history since World War II, the terms of the national debate have subtly, insidiously shifted. What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane. What used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking.

The recovery of antecedents is immensely important work. Historians are reconstructing the lost history of homosexual America, along with all the other lost histories. Freedom, I think, is finally being at home in the world, it is a returning -- to the best particulars of the home you came from, or the arrival, after a lengthy and arduous journey, at the home you never had, which your dreams and desires have described for you.

I have a guilty confession to make. When I am depressed, when nerve or inspiration or energy flag, I put on Dvorak's Ninth Symphony, "From the New World"; I get teary listening to the Largo. It's become one of the alltime most shopworn musical cliches, which is regrettable. My father, who is a symphony conductor, told me that Dvorak wrote it in America and then contributed all the money from the New World Symphony's premiere to a school that accepted former slaves. But as the story goes, his daughter fell in love with a Native American and Dvorak took the whole family back to Bohemia.

Like many Americans I'm looking for home. Home is an absence, it is a loss that impels us. I want this home to be like the Largo from the New World Symphony. But life most frequently resembles something by Schoenberg, the last quartet, the one he wrote after his first heart attack. Life these days is played out to the tune of that soundtrack. Or something atonal, anyway, something derivative of Schoenberg, some piece written by one of his less talented pupils.

The only politics that can survive an encounter with this world, and still speak convincingly of freedom and justice and democracy, is a politics that can encompass both the harmonics and the dissonance. The frazzle, the rubbed-raw, the unresolved, the fragile and the fiery and the dangerous: these are American things. This jangle is our movement forward, if we are to move forward; it is our survival, if we are to survive.

[feministfataley]

The Images You Sell Are Problematic - The Importance of Plus Size Characters in Video Games

The video game industry is currently the biggest entertainment industry in the UK in terms of spending.  More and more people are choosing to engage with the medium whether it is through mobile apps with the dreaded microtransactions, through more traditional games such as Call of Duty or Fallout or even through the medium of interactive entertainment – Netflix’s Bandersnatch, for example.  

With increased audiences must come increased responsibility – video games pull in audiences from all walks of life.  To some extent, we have seen improvements.  We have seen stories from queer protagonists, people of colour, men, women, children, even mentally ill protagonists. Progress indeed, but there is one area that remains criminally underrepresented.

Despite all these fantastical stories taking place in far off lands, most of the character models adhere to the same mould.   Granted, we’ve come a long way since plus size representation was limited to a small rotund Italian man with a mushroom addiction and his imaginary pet dinosaur, but there is still a considerable shortage of larger characters.  

Female characters are typically thin but curvy, an ideal that is nearly impossible to recreate without surgery.  Male characters tend to be lean and overly muscled – a figure out of reach of most average joes.  Taking a cursory glance around you, you’ll see people of many different body types and shapes.  So why are we still refusing to accept this in video games?

Anastasia Wyatt, junior artist on indie title Heaven’s Vault, believes pressure from shareholders could be the problem.  She said: “With the big companies they've probably been more cautious because they think this is the only thing that sells because that's all that there’s been in the past.  A small company has less shareholders and a lot less pressure if they take what they consider as a risk with less idealized looking characters.  It's not going to be disastrous for them in that respect if it doesn't sell well.”

It is not just pressure from shareholders here either, players themselves exert pressure on publishers to use idealised figures. World of Warcraft announced a new allied race with the launch of its newest expansion – Battle for Azeroth.  The race was called Kul Tiran humans, and feature a much bulkier frame and taller than the standard human model. Plus-sized gamers rejoiced.  The rest of the community did not. Within a few hours of the announcement the Blizzard forums were full of people asking for a ‘thin’ version of the character or spewing vitriol about how this character model was ugly and shouldn’t be implemented.  It’s a difficult position to be in.

Wyatt said:  “I think that's why publishers get nervous because they see criticisms like that. They think that even if they would like to use a plus size character in the people will react badly and they don't want to see those sort of comments perhaps. Which is a shame.”

Regardless of any outside pressure however, representation is very important.  Not only for the people represented by plus-size characters, but to combat fatphobia – the fear of being fat.   A large amount of stigma still exists towards plus size people in the wild, and games that equate fat to lazy or disgusting do not help.  Representation is even more important when you consider the young age children are exposed to this type of media.  Dr Peyta Eckler, professor of social communication at the University of Strathclyde, is concerned about the effect this may have.  She said: “I think this is an industry that is made predominantly for men and unfortunately it it's feeding them unhealthy stereotypes which are hugely outdated and problematic nowadays.  Not just about body types but women in general.

We cannot ignore and be blind to the societal repercussions of such images. I'm not sure if this will come to be regulated at some point, but also I think for young women, there needs to step back and a reality check.  Realizing okay what we've talked about these are unrealistic images.  Yes they do show what's desirable but they're taken to an extreme and no one can live up to that extreme.”

The erasure of plus-size figures in games contributes to a negative perception overall, especially if children are being exposed to this erasure from a young age.  Normalisation of different body types and figures is very important in formative years.

That’s not to say all portrayals are negative however.  Take Ellie, first appearing in Borderlands 2 by Gearbox.  She is a skilled, fiercely independent mechanic who is unashamedly fat.  More than being unashamed, she is proud of her body and who she is.  A mission for her involves you collecting statuettes of her from the wreckage of bandit cars.  She said they were made to make fun of her, but she loves them and the way she looks.  She displays the collected figurines in her garage, clearly delighted with the result.  It is this kind of body positivity we need in the industry.  Ellie doesn’t let others tell her what to do with her body and loves it the way it is.  

Heaven’s Vault reliably uses varied body types and shapes.  Huang is chubby, the professor is old.  They look like bodies that have been lived in, bodies that have stories to tell.  No one is inherently evil because they look different.  This also makes the characters infinitely more engaging.  Wyatt said:  “Not everyone is going to be the man with the same build, in the same stubble. We designed the characters this way because this is what people look like. It's also a good thing to do because then you just get an interesting range of characters. If everyone is the same man with stubble that's boring.

I certainly feel like when you're playing games and especially if it's trying to be a game it's about sort of a realistic story and you're trying to emotionally connect to people; if everyone looks like this idealized super model then it seems less real.”

The world would be terribly boring if we all looked the same.  Video game worlds are similar in this respect.  Worlds populated with a varied cast of characters are more engaging, more alive.  Playing a game populated by varied characters is infinitely more satisfying, particularly from a roleplaying point of view.  

Of course, for every good example of plus size representation there are a million bad ones.   Look at all the extra difficult and physically disgusting zombie enemies that also happen to be fat.  For example, bloaters in State of Decay 2 and boomers in Left 4 Dead.  You also have Wario from the Mario series and Dr Robotnik from Sonic, both antagonists and visibly overweight.  Depictions of fat characters are not usually kind, coding them as either lazy or undesirable purely because of their size.  

Not even the God of Thunder is immune from this character coding.  Stepping away from the realm of video games for a moment, the latest instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:  Avengers Endgame saw Thor begin drinking to forget the people he had lost, resulting in a ‘beer belly’. Completely understandable considering how traumatic the previous film Infinity War was to watch.  However, they played his weight gain for laughs.  Cheap jokes resounded about his weight for the rest of the film.  This is the sort of thing more widespread plus size representation would combat.  If plus size people were a regular occurrence in these universes, the ability to poke fun of them for being unusual would disappear.

It is clear that change is needed, but how do you change an industry still beset by outdated stereotypes and fatphobia?  Dr Eckler said: “I think there has to be change from within. I think once more women hopefully become part of the creators of these games. They would start changing some of the content, forcing change in the content.”   Wyatt has a different view.  “I think that games where there are different characters, people are really beginning to pick up on them. I think we've been slowly seeing more diverse characters in recent years.  More games with female leads for example, when I was younger there were only a handful of games that had female characters in them.  It will take time, but I believe we will see more body type diversity as the industry evolves.”

There is hope.  The indie games market is doing rather well at telling the stories of all kinds of people and players.  Away from the eyes of publishing houses and shareholders, wonderful, beautiful games are being made.  In the truest spirt of video games as communication, stories are told about people of all shapes and sizes and races and genders.  It is an amazing thing and something it is hoped will begin to be a standard, no matter what level you are publishing a game at.  

Video games can be a powerful vehicle to communicate ideas.  There is no reason why they couldn’t be used to provide some much-needed normalisation of the existence of different body types.  It is the responsible thing to do.   The power to create a world as you want it to be, or as you see it is in a developer’s hands.    Use that power for good, create a more accepting society.  Goodness knows there’s enough hate going around as it is.

[gimmeanaplease-blog]

From Glass Slippers to the Glass Ceiling: 15 Ways Disney has Improved in the Face of our Cultural Shift

Disney has had a long and complicated history with being outdated. Sexism and racism plague the older movies. However, in the past decade it’s been clear that with the shift of public views Disney has been making a run to catch up with the times.

1. Disney’s First African American Princess

Disney’s shift into the new culture all began with their first African American princess. Tiana began as a hard working woman who simply wanted to achieve her dream of owning her own restaurant in New Orleans. With an upbeat attitude and more than a few bumps in the road she meets her prince, falls in love, and defeats the evil witch doctor.

Tiana remains, however, as hardworking as she started out when pursuing her dream. Even when she marries Prince Naveen she doesn’t use her newfound privilege to get her restaurant. Rather she uses the money she’d earned from years working as a waitress in a cafe as well as the allies she’s met along her journey to buy the abandoned building which she envisions as her future restaurant. With her new husband she renovates the place and opens the door to her new life.

2. Breaking Their Own Rules

Merida was Disney’s next great leap into Disney breaking their mold of the standard princess. Merida was messy, ungraceful, and she hated having to act “like a princess”. She’d much rather stuff her face with food, sport her unruly natural hair, and go shooting archery in the woods. Throughout the movie she participates in activities that her mother initially deems unfit for a princess.

In the ultimate act of defiance of the movie, Merida takes off her headwear containing her hair, rips her dress for mobility, and shoots three arrows into their marks in a competition men were engaging in to become her fiance. She obliterates her competition and shows that her hand in marriage isn’t to be won.

3. A Strong Independent Woman

In the past Disney has had heroines that don’t need a man to save them. From Belle to Mulan we saw princesses who saved the day all on their own. Yet time after time we saw they always ended up with their man in the end. Along comes Brave, a story of a young Scottish princess to be betrothed by her family. Merida, however, loathes the concept and in her own act of rebellion she deems that she will be competing for her own hand.

Through a convoluted plot involving bears and family drama at its finest, Merida finds herself at the epicenter of having to repair her broken relationship with her mother. The central conflict isn’t her engagement to a man she just met, it was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even at the end of the movie when we’re expecting the stereotypical happily ever after, Merida remains single. “There are no intimate evenings, sparkling jewelry, dazzling gowns (Merida, in fact, hates her formalwear), sweet gestures or smart give-and-take dialogue that foreshadow a final, emotional kiss. The suitors are simply buffoons, not fit to brush Merida’s flowing red hair, much less match up with her archery skills” (Zakarin, 2012). To add onto the quote from The Hollywood Reporter, Brave didn’t even star any men that weren’t Merida’s family. She was the first true Disney princess to end up without a man at the end of her movie.

4. Prince Smarming

During the climax of Disney’s biggest hit in years we’re expecting a Prince Charming saves the day moment. Anna is about to succumb to a frozen heart so a collective breath holds as Prince Hans leans in to deliver True Love’s Kiss in order to reverse the curse. Then through a head spinning twist, we find out that Hans had been our villain all along.

In Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist she details the trials of “Prince Charming”, “The man in most fairy tales, Prince Charming in all his iterations, really isn’t that interesting. In most fairy tales, he is blandly attractive and rarely seems to demonstrate much personality, taste, or intelligence. We’re supposed to believe this is totally fine because he is Prince Charming. His charm is supposedly enough” (Gay, 2014). The writers of frozen use this subconscious ideal of what audiences expect of Prince Charming to disguise his true intentions. In reality Hans wants the kingdom and is willing to kill both princesses in order to achieve a spot on the throne.

5. Maleficent and the Me Too Movement

Maleficent is a movie that came out in 2014 depicting the villain of the same name’s side of the famous story Sleeping Beauty. Starring Angelina Jolie, Maleficent is a tragic hero of sorts as when she was young, she fell for her best friend - and future king - Stefan. Stephan’s father, however, had sent his son off to kill Maleficent as she is the queen of the faeries and keeping him from conquering the land. To prove he’s killed Maleficent, Stephan must deliver her wings to his father. Unable to bring himself to kill her, Stephan gives her a sleeping potion while they are together and cuts off her wings in her sleep.

Sound familiar? That is because this scene is meant to depict a rape scene. Writer Linda Woolverton talked openly about the scene with the press, “I had done some research, and the biggest surprise is that she’s a fairy, not a witch. I’ve always wanted to do a dark fairy story. Then I watched that scene where she curses the baby, and I’m thinking “well if she’s a fairy, where are her wings?” Suddenly it was “boom. Lightbulb. Oh! It’s the wings!” Then I worked backward from there to create the Stefan relationship” (Krischer, 2014). The portrayal of the scene is vastly important to culture as only 3 years later, the Me Too movement brought to light the ever present normalization of sexual harassment and assault that women face every year. The fact that an action is so prevalent in society that it has an allusion in a Disney movie is both heartbreaking and incredibly telling.

6. Queer Eye for the Bad Guy

Disney has had a long history of queer coding their villains. The most basic definition of queer coding is using giving characteristics, behaviors, and actions to their characters so that the audience may read them as gay. Often these are stereotypes such as the Lefou's flamboyance, Hades’ sass, or Ursula’s likeness to a drag queen. Now Disney attempted through their movie to depict a gay character in it’s live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. However it seems their belief of depicting a gay character is turning Lefou’s flamboyance from a 7/10 to a 12/10. There was even a brief scene of him dancing with a man but if you blink you could miss it. Rani Barker describes how this act is harmful to the LGBT+ community, “The problem, as queer people, is this continues to treat our stories, our yearnings, and our experiences as unspeakable. Something to be whispered, scrutinized and doubted. Keeps it closeted right in front of our faces” (Barker, 2016). It feels like a spit in the face for the first “gay character” in Disney to be such an obvious trove of stereotypes.

All is not lost for Disney’s representation in the LGBT+ community though. Andi Mack, a television show on the Disney Channel features a character that has openly admitted that he is gay and actually approached an arc where he had to come out to his friends. He is not a throwaway character either, he is one of the main characters on the show. Hopefully this character on the small screen will pave the way for proper representation on the big one.

7. Zootopia’s Depiction of Race Relations

Zootopia on the surface appears to be the classic Disney talking animal movie on the surface but underneath the detailed animation and so many puns is an actually complicated statement on race relations. The animals of Zootopia are divided into two types, “predator” and “prey”. As the plot develops Judy, a rabbit cop, and Nick, a civilian fox, discover that there are a series of attacks developing where predators are suddenly “going savage”. As Judy took the lead in the case, she must be the one to talk at the press conference despite them still not knowing the true cause. Chaos ensued as an all out battle broke out between predators and prey.

Not very subtle huh? Charles Pulliam-Moore describes how this scene in particular applies to our society today, “As much as the scene is grounded in the world of Zootopia, it's shot through with elements of many of the real-world police-run press conferences that have followed in the wake of the dozens of high-profile shooting of black people in recent years. Though Judy admits that the ZPD doesn't know the specific details of the case, reporters focus on the few problematic soundbites she feeds them while taking in visuals of rabid, muzzled animals that the police have detained” (Pulliam-Moore, 2016). Both in the movie and in real life it’s media that digs into certain words and forces a fear fueled narrative to cause prejudice in people’s day to day life. Though Zootopia doesn’t quite rise to the ranks in favor of a child’s story happily ever after, it was bold of Disney to try to scale that height in the first place.

8. Realistic Bodies for Women (Finally!)

The proportions for female bodies in Disney has been a rough ride for decades. Since the release of the first princess movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Disney has long regulated the eurocentric ideals of beauty with large eyes, full lips, and a ridiculously tiny waist. Momentarily it seemed like we’d seen a shift via Nani Pelekai in the 2002 movie Lilo and Stitch. Nani defied the Disney standards of beauty with a large nose, a darker skin tone, and even a more realistic stomach. Yet as the next princess movies rolled around, they resorted right back to their usual bullshit.

The tide shifted yet again in 2016 with the release of another Hawaiian based film, Moana. Unlike Lilo and Stitch, Moana was a titular film for the company as it was it’s next big “princess movie” after their big hit Frozen. Moana was the soon to be chief of her tribe and she sported everything the princesses of the past hadn’t. Moana had wild hair, a darker complexion, realistic muscle tone for the activities she participated in (climbing and sailing), and much more realistic proportions. Moana brings forth a body type that much more girls see when they look in the mirror than those looking at Ariel or Jasmine.

9. The Importance of Female Solidarity in Feminism

Yet another climax of a film yields an entirely different result. This time the movie we focus in on is Moana. She and the demigod Maui have traveled across the ocean to return the Heart of Te Fiti. They are stopped by a lava monster Te Kā. When all seems lost Moana discovers that not only is Te Fiti missing but Te Kā is not who she appears to be at all.

It is Moana who realizes that Te Fiti and Te Kā are one in the same. Valentina Boré remarks on the importance of solidarity in feminism perfectly reflects Moana’s thoughts as she returns her heart “If we don’t try to understand what our other fellow feminists have gone through, how can we really make a change for anyone at all” (Boré, 2015). She makes the connection that Te Fiti had her heart stolen from her by Maui and thus lost herself. Through Moana’s kindness and comfort for another woman, she is able to save her island.

10. Real Portrayals of Diverse Cultures

Moana and Coco are two of the most recent additions to Disney’s animated movies. Both contain great amounts of respect towards the given culture shown. It is clear that a great amount of research went into both of these films, including featuring songs in the native languages. In Moana the song “We Know the Way” features a large portion in the Tokelauan language while a lot of the songs featured in Coco are Spanish.

Coco, especially is a feat to be admired. Director Lee Unkrich early expressed concern of rejection as he, himself, is not hispanic or even latino. However, to combat this Unkrich and producers opened the film to Latino cultural consultants for criticism and the ability to toss around ideas to better improve the film. This was met with initial outrage by the company since, for the longest time, production was meant to be kept under tight wraps. Producer Darla K. Anderson commented in an interview, “We don’t normally open up the doors to let people in to see our early screenings. But we really wanted their voice and their notes and to make sure we got all the details correct” (Ugwu, 2017). To go against traditions in order to assure that they got the movie correct shows true care and love for their story and what it will mean for other people.

11. The Voices of Coco are All Latinx

Coco was a movie unlike any before it. The Pixar film depicted a Mexican story of a young boy Miguel getting trapped in the land of the dead when he tried to connect with his estranged ancestor who shared his love for music. Coco was based around the holiday Dia de los Muertos and surrounded an entirely Mexican family.

What sets Coco apart from other films of Disney’s past is it’s determination to have an entirely latinx cast. Everyone from the lead Miguel to the featured character of Frida Kahlo to unnamed correction officers are played by latinx actors. Even Princess and the Frog, who had a mostly colored set of characters as well didn’t mimic this action.

12. What Makes a Princess?

Disney, like many other industries, has poked fun at itself more than once. This typically involves a playfully jab at character’s affinity to burst into song. Tangled and Moana alike have teased the song filled musicals but none have been so ruthless to Disney’s archetype of a princess as Wreck It Ralph 2.

Vanellope stumbles upon a trailer full of all the princesses we are familiar with, claiming that she is a princess as well. Naturally, they have to question her. In detailing the scene writers describe, “As the princess encounter evolved, the writers played off the fact that not only do Disney princesses often get kidnapped, but that they are forever gazing into “important waters.” (In their attention to detail, one princess fan at the studio noted to Ribon that Mulan does not look into a puddle, but rather a horse trough. Robin’s enthusiastic response: “Even better!”) The scene also skewers the reliance on a lumbering hunk to solve a damsel’s thorny problem” (Cavna, 2018). While Disney is only making these jokes in jest of their past and how each of the princesses have something in common, it’s nice to see that they’re acknowledging Disney’s untold rules of what makes you a princess. It takes Vanellope affirming that people say her problems were all solved because of a man for the princesses to accept her as so. Ironically, this is the one point that connects all of the princesses together. 

13. Stories About Mental Health

Outside of physical representation Disney has created a rich environment for representation for mental health as well. Inside Out was a movie that told the story of physical manifestations of a girl’s emotions having to deal with making her happy after a cross country move takes her away from familiar surroundings and friends. Throughout the movie it shows clear depictions of Riley, the girl who houses the emotions, experiencing what many people can recognize as depression.

The standout of them all seems to be a Disney creation that isn’t even a full length film. Before every movie Disney airs a Pixar short. This separate story can hold just as much emotion as a full length movie but sometimes the message can be missed completely based on racism alone. Before Incredibles 2, a short called Bao aired. Bao featured an Asian Woman who became the mother of a dumpling that came to life. However, as the dumpling grew older he became more dismissive of the mother while she became more desperate to hold onto her dumpling child. At the climax as the dumpling tries to leave she eats him. Now, any person with half a mind can recognize this as a metaphor for empty nest syndrome. This is a feeling of loneliness and depression that a parent may feel when their child leaves the home. It is revealed at the end that she was reflecting on her relationship with her human son after all. Given, she did not actually eat her son but more than likely got into a nasty fight to push him away.

Yet, some people simply didn’t get it. Rather than recognizing the story as a mother and son fighting and coming together once more; people saw a dumpling and a woman with Asian features and completely shut down. The thing is, they could’ve told this story with any race of mother and son and food of their given area. “Our cultural signifiers might be different, but basic human emotions are an experience that spans all of us as humans on this planet” (Jitchotvisut, 2018). Any mother who cares for their child would experience empty nest syndrome but the creators of Bao chose to make this character Asian and they didn’t need a reason to do so either.

14. Putting a Woman in Charge

After John Lasseter was asked to step down amid accusations of misconduct a new head of Disney Animation was needed and there was only one man for the job, a woman. By the end of 2018, Jennifer Lee would become the new Head of Disney Animation. Only joining in 2011, Lee quickly gained wins under her belt such as being a co-director for Frozen, being a co-writer for Wreck It Ralph, and being a key component to Zooptopia.

Lee marks a change from Disney’s initial brand of vapid misogyny and truly shows how the brand has taken a turn for the better. In response to her promotion she replies, “My hope is to support the incredible talent we have, find new voices, and work together to tell original stories. The great films of Disney Animation — the films I loved as a kid and my daughter has grown up loving — are magical, timeless, and full of heart, and it is our goal to create films that carry on and grow this 95-year legacy for future generations” (Berger, 2018). We should be able to look forwards to seeing these new groundbreaking stories with a woman at the lead of the studio.

15. Using Their Other Brands to Reinforce this New Image

Along the years the empire that is Disney has bought out many other companies. The cultural shift has created a wave that rippled these industries as well. Star Wars and Marvel alike have seen a move towards the society Disney began reflecting in 2009.

Star Wars revived after 10 years of remaining dormant with an all new story with a female at its center. Not only that but 3 of the other new heroes are all people of color: Finn played by John Boyega is an African American man, Poe Dameron played by Oscar Issac is Guatemalan, and Rose Tico is played by Kelly Marie Tran is a Vietnamese woman.

Marvel’s shift took more time but isn’t any less prevalent. Perhaps the most apparent is the bold move to have an almost entirely African American cast for the 2018 film, Black Panther. With a world of research on the culture backing the project the film broke records and earned Marvel it’s first Oscar.

Disney backing these projects reflect it’s turning tide and the world is more than supportive.

Sources

[korrasera]

One of the disheartening things about bigots is that they don't realize that they're bigots. Or rather, they think that their bigotry is justified.

If you've ever heard an exclusionist talk about aces being abusers or oppressors that are ultimately responsible for the evils affecting the community, including death? That's their justification, they're afraid of the world regressing and things getting harder for queer people and they blame aces for it. The problem is, they used to blame trans people. And they used to blame bisexuals too.

If you've ever heard a truscum talk about non-dysphoric trans people being selfish and narcissistic and willing to harm trans people to satisfy their interest/fetish/trend? That's their justification, they're afraid they'll lose access to medical care and they blame other trans people for it. The problem is, they used to blame trans women that didn't want to be Suzie Homemaker too, when they called themselves Harry Benjamin Syndrome sufferers.

If you've ever heard a TERF talk about trans women being straight men that are trying to attack cis women? That's their justification, they're afraid of cis men and a patriarchy that hates women and they blame trans women for it.

They're all united in one thing. They're afraid, even when it's just on an unconscious level, and they use that fear to justify their beliefs, no matter how obviously false they are.

Aces aren't responsible for the prejudices facing the LGBTQ+ community, they have no power to oppress the community and are not a part of the class of people who do.

Non-dysphoric non-binary trans people don't threaten our access to medical care. In fact, getting the medical community to accept non-dysphoric non-binary trans people has actually improved our access to medical care for the purposes of transition.

Trans women aren't responsible for the patriarchy's violence towards women. In fact, we face some of the harshest punishments from it because we're not just seen as women, we're seen as broken women who have also actively told the patriarchy that it's full of shit by rejecting society's stamp of 'man' that it assigned us at birth.

All of these groups behave the same because on some level they are the same. And because they're such frightened people, they've built us up to the monsters in the dark, the nightmare that keeps them awake at night, because blaming us for their woes is easier than confronting the real problem.

If I could give people only one piece of advice for the rest of my life, it would be this:

Be brave.

Conquering your own fear is what makes you an adult, it's what gives you the power you need to be a good person who will do good things. When you are brave you can look at yourself and accept that you make mistakes and that sometimes you'll be wrong, and carry on knowing that you can accept that, learn from it, and do better next time.

And I promise you, if you can control that fear then you can see these people for what they are, little more than children that are willing to burn down the house to keep themselves warm.

[camsforreal]

10 Steps to Take to Be More Inclusive in Your Photography Business

Standing out from your competition can be daunting. One easy way to do this is to make sure your business shows you are inclusive and welcoming. A lot of photographers say they are inclusive, but they are not projecting that. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself to help you figure out where you can improve your business.

For decades, I have worked to help organizations, businesses, and governments, from the local level all the way up to the national level, learn how to be more inclusive. In November, I’ll be teaching on the international stage. It isn’t enough anymore to simply be diverse. You also need to be inclusive. A lot of people simply don’t know where to begin. Beginning is as easy as completing the following audit and making any necessary adjustments.

Question 1: How Do You Show if You Are Queer, Including Transgender Friendly?

When helping other businesses, this is one of the biggest areas in which they want to improve. There are multiple ways you can show and not tell that you are queer-friendly. This includes using gender-neutral language on your website and intake forms. If working in portraiture, it includes using language such as “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” when discussing pre- and post-natal photography. It includes having a field to list pronouns on forms if the client chooses. It means putting your pronouns in your signature, on business cards, and on your website to signal to others that they can disclose theirs to you if they choose. These are just a few things you can do to show you are purposely thinking of all people in your marketing.

Question 2: Do You Have Queer Photography on Your Website and Have You Studied It?

Queer photography is its own genre. You need to be prepared to photograph queer people using both the method that people consider to be the default and the edgier angles found in queer photography. But it isn’t only camera angle and color grading, but also posing. Queer photography has its own unique posing that gets even more specialized when shooting transgender people. You need to know how to do figure study and boudoir for transgender people. You also need to be ready for all sorts of body configurations since you cannot ask people what is under their clothing. A good rule to follow: if you wouldn’t ask the question of your cisgender and straight clients, don’t ask it about your queer clients.

Question 3: If You Offer Gender-Based Photography Services, Are You Intentionally Including Transgender, Non-Binary, and Gender Non-Conforming People?

Maternity and natal photography. Breast/Chestfeeding photography. Boudoir. Figure Study. Birthing sessions. These are all examples of photography you are probably associating with cisgender women clients. But there are also transgender people who are not women who want these services. If you are happy to serve all genders for these services, then it is as simple as stating: “we provide services for all bodies and all genders.” If you only provide these services to women, does that include transgender women? If so, then state: “we provide services for all women.” And if you are not comfortable providing these services to all bodies, then research queer photographers in your area that are inclusive of all bodies and refer clients to them. You can do so by simply saying: “I am not yet trained in how to shoot transgender bodies. But I’m happy to refer you to X. They will do a great job.”

Question 4: Are You Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes in Your Posing?

This is a big issue. It happens when posing all people. I also hear it a lot when images are being critiqued, especially when the model appears to be a cisgender woman. It is time to challenge your gaze and shoot more to how the model naturally holds themselves and pose in flattering ways based on that. It is also time to shoot some personal projects to update your portfolio with imagery that reflects a wide range of gender expressions.

Question 5: Do You Have Plus-Sized People in Your Portfolio?

You are turning away a lot of potential clients before they even click on that contact page because your portfolio does not reflect all body sizes. I know a lot of people who want to shoot bigger bodies, but they don’t know-how. It is too bad that "Full Body Project" by Leonard Nimoy is no longer in print, because that book was a masterclass in how to shoot bigger bodies. Without models of all sizes in your portfolio, you are signaling that you are fat-phobic and not body positive. It may be time for another personal project.



Question 6: How Many People of Color, Especially Indigenous and Black People, Do You Feature in Your Portfolio?

Photography has been and continues to be a tool of colonization and whitewashing. Part of western society's very notion of “good” and “evil” comes from how Western photographers have processed black and brown skin to make it look darker and white skin to make it look lighter since the beginning of the art. Now, the issue is compounded by white photographers inappropriately processing black and brown skin using digital tools. If you are shooting Indigenous people, did you consult with them and get their approval before profiting off their experiences? There needs to be a disclosure saying this on your website whenever you collaborate with Indigenous people. And if your website is full of nothing but white-passing people, it's time for another personal project.

Question 7: When Shooting Non-White Western-European Places, People, Food, Events, Etc., Are You Shooting Appropriately or Is It Appropriative, and What Language Do You Use?

I’m not sure I can ever express the utter rage I feel when I see chopsticks in Asian food imagery when they don’t belong. Asian cuisine and Asian culture are not a monolith. When shooting food, places, events, etc. that are not native to you, it is really important that you take some time to do some research first, especially if you want to work with clients who are not from white Western European backgrounds. It is also imperative that you drop the word “ethnic” and “exotic” from your vocabulary if working with diverse, racialized clients is important to you. A Sikh or Muslim wedding is just as North American as a white Christian wedding. If you wouldn’t use the word to describe your own culture, don’t use it to describe the culture of another.

Question 8: Do the Images on Your Website Include Alt Text for the Blind and Visually Impaired?

Too many photographers still do not do this. Blind and visually impaired people buy photography services. It isn’t enough to simply say what is in the images. The alt text also needs to reflect the sensory experiences conveyed in the image. It is really easy with food because you can describe things like the “warm aroma” of whatever spice is used in a dish, as one example. Do the same in other genres. What does the clothing feel like? What texture can describe the fabric? Is there a smell in the breeze? Is the sun warm or cool? Is the river trickling or roaring? Are the birds chirping or squawking?

Question 9: Is Your Studio Wheelchair Accessible and Is This Information Stated on Your Website?

Legislation on accessibility varies wildly around the world. Even in countries that have accessibility legislation, a lot of businesses do not comply. I’m a wheelchair user. If I must ask a business if their place is wheelchair accessible because it isn’t listed clearly on their site, I won’t bother contacting them or giving them my business.

Question 10: Do You Ask Your Clients if They Need Any Accommodations, Including for Sensory Issues?

When I give talks about how to be inclusive, I can see the facepalm as it flashes across people’s brains when I talk about this, because it is something often on their minds as they have neurodivergent people close to them, and yet, they forget to make this one simple change in their own business. If you deal with families, be willing to accommodate the child who will need to wear noise-cancellation headphones throughout the session. It won’t ruin the images. You are capturing the truth of that person’s identity. If a person says they are sensitive to lights, dim them and only bring them up as the shoot starts, taking frequent breaks so the person doesn’t experience sensory overload. Most of the time, if you ask this question, you won’t need to figure out how to accommodate the need. The person will let you know how it can be done.

There are many more things you can do to show your business is an inclusive business. But these 10 things are things you can do now with little effort on your part but with a big reward.

Lead image by Prostock-studio, used under Envato commercial license.

 

[alexandraktang]

Project 2: LGBTQ+ Representation in Video Games

Note: This essay contains spoilers for Gone Home, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Resident Evil: Dead Aim, the Life is Strange series, and The Last of Us: Left Behind.

LGBTQ+ representation in video games has historically been few and far between. Characters belonging to the community have often fallen into cliché, one-dimensional, and offensive but mostly damaging tropes. One such trope is the gay antagonist, whose lack of gender conformity is often the punch line of the joke or the reason they are the villain of the story, and another frequently seen trope is the “Bury Your Gays” trope in which LGBTQ+ characters suffer tragic fates and are often dead by the end of the game. As society has grown more accepting and understanding of the LGBTQ+ community, video games too have begun to welcome the community by adding authentic characters and narratives and granting players the freedom to choose their romantic partners in recent games. Both The Moose Test and GLAAD’s Outstanding Video Game Award are two important steps forward toward accurate portrayals and positive representation in video games. With the turbulence and division in today’s society, positive and authentic representation in video games is a key tool in building bridges to a path of understanding and communication.

LGBTQ+ characters were frequently casted as antagonists with their gender-nonconformity as a reason worthy of evil. This is exemplified by two games belonging to the Resident Evil series, one being Code Veronica and the other being Dead Aim. In the first, the main antagonist, Alfred Ashford, is revealed to cross-dress as his sister to “channel her spirit” and is hinted to have had an incestual relationship with her (Flanagan). In the latter, the main antagonist, Morpheus Duvall, transforms into a female version of himself after taking a virus strain (Flanagan). Both of these depictions show a negative view of trans-ness and differing from cisheterosexuality in general, as Alfred’s cross-dressing is tied to an incestual relationship and sociopathology, and Morpheus’s sex change is shown as the result of a virus strain. Characters that showcase the ridicule of LGBTQ+ characters are Poison from Capcom’s Final Fight and Ash from Sega’s Streets of Rage 3. Final Fight is a melee fighting game, and Capcom was concerned that players would feel guilty fighting a woman and thus made Poison transgender, displaying the disparaging mentality that transgender women are not women and that transgender people are more acceptable people to attack. Ash from Sega’s Streets of Rage 3, another melee fighting game, fits an extremely flamboyant stereotype of a gay man. He wears a purple leather outfit, fights with a team of go-go boys, and stands in a ridiculous pose that is not traditionally masculine (or even a proper fighting stance) and thus differs largely from other male characters. If this portrayal weren’t offensive enough, Sega decided to pull Ash from the North American release to “protect the innocence of American audiences” (Flanagan).

The “Bury Your Gays” trope is a trope pervasive in all sorts of narratives, ranging from books to shows to movies and games. Two important mainstream titles that fall into this category are Dontnod’s Life is Strange along with its prequel Deck Nine’s Life is Strange: Before the Storm and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, its downloadable content The Last of Us: Left Behind in particular. In Life is Strange, players play as Max, a high school girl who is reunited with her former best friend Chloe, and uncover the dark secrets of Arcadia Bay. In this game, there are many allusions and hints that the two friends harbor romantic feelings for one another but it is never explicitly confirmed. Moreover, Chloe is shown to have intense feelings for her other best friend, Rachel Amber, but this too is never confirmed. This is a form of queerbaiting, which uses the promise of LGBTQ+ representation to pull in players only to fall short and betray their trust (Chan). In the prequel, players play as Chloe and are able to explore the intimate relationship between Chloe and Rachel but again, nothing is made canon. Players are able to choose to kiss Chloe or Rachel, depending on the game, but no relationship is ever made official. This, however, is just one problem with the game. In the first installment of the series, players choose the ending of the story by having Max save either the entire town or only Chloe. This puts players in a difficult position as Max loses something significant either way, and the only way for Max to be happy with Chloe is to sacrifice their neighbors, friends, and family. Regarding Chloe and Rachel’s relationship, we discover that Rachel is dead in the first game, which leaves zero chance for a happy ending for the two. Thus, in the prequel, no matter what players do, no matter how romantic their choices are, players cannot change the fact that Rachel dies and that Chloe is left to mourn her loss. There is no true happy ending for these characters. Similarly, in the DLC of The Last of Us, we learn that prior to the main game, Ellie, one of the main characters, was in love with her best female friend Riley, who she lost to the zombie apocalypse. The girls share a kiss, only to be attacked by a zombie soon after. As Ellie alone survives to be a character in the main story, we know that Riley has passed and there is no happy ending for this couple either.

As we see more LGBTQ+ narratives in games, it is important to remain critical of the narratives depicted. By having LGBTQ+ people getting involved in producing video games, tests and awards evaluating LGBTQ+ representation are being created. In 2017, Michael ‘Moose, Musatow, an experience designer at RedPeg Marketing and a gay man, developed a test to evaluate the representation of an LGBTQ+ character in a video game. Similar to the Bechdel test, which evaluates the representation of women in a work of fiction, the Moose test holds a list of criteria necessary for positive and authentic portrayal in video games (Musatow). This is important as simply adding LGBTQ+ characters to a work does not count as proper representation and can easily be detrimental to the community that plays it. Developers must be mindful about the characters they are creating and how powerful the narratives they depict can be to a person whose gender or sexuality differs from the accepted norm. Along this line, GLAAD, an organization that monitors LGBTQ+ representation in media, has introduced an award to its annual media awards show to recognize video games that excel in LGBTQ+ inclusivity (Lanier). This new category will begin in 2019 and highlight games “empower LGBTQ+ with the agency to explore and express themselves safely within a virtual environment” (Lanier).

Despite the increased visibility of LGBTQ+ representation in video games, representation is still not perfect. Issues, such as antagonizing LGBTQ+ characters, queerbaiting, “Bury Your Gays” tropes, after-the-fact identifying, and playersexual characters, still exist but it is improving. It is important to be critical of the portrayals that exist while enjoying a work to continue moving toward a path of understanding and acceptance, both in the LGBTQ+ community and in society as a whole. LGBTQ+ people are people with stories that also need to be told to help them find characters with whom they resonate and to whom can admire, to help them accept their own identities, to acquaint people not belonging to the community with the realities of the LGBTQ+ experience, and to normalize being LGBTQ+. People are being killed all around the world for not fitting into the cisheteronormative mold society has built and continues to uphold. Even a country that claims to preserve its citizens’ freedom is beginning to backtrack in the rights given to people who do not fit this mold. Now, more than ever, diversity and inclusion in video game narratives are important tools in building bridges between the separated factions of our societies.

Works Cited

Chan, Khee Hoon. “Why I’m Afraid Video Games Will Continue to ‘Bury its Gays’.” Polygon, 4 Aug. 2017, polygon.com/2017/8/4/16090980/life-is-strange-death-lgbtq-characters. Accessed 28 October 2018.

Greer, Sam. “Queer Representation in Games isn’t Good Enough, but it is Getting Better.” GamesRadar+, 15 May. 2018, gamesradar.com/queer-representation-in-games-isnt-good-enough-but-it-is-getting-better/. Accessed 22 October 2018.

Flanagan, Jack. “The Complete History of LGBT Video Game Characters.” The Daily Dot, 16 May. 2014, dailydot.com/parsec/gay-characters-video-games-history. Accessed 22 October 2018.

Lanier, Liz. “GLAAD to Recognize Excellence in Video Game LGBTQ Representation.” Variety, 26 Sep. 2018, variety.com/2018/gaming/news/glaad-video-game-lgbt-representation-1202958447. Accessed 22 October 2018.

Musatow, Michael. “The Moose Test for LGBT Representation in Video Games.” Medium, 2 Dec. 2017, medium.com/@SimplyMoose/the-moose-test-for-lgbt-representation-in-video-games-905d7edd872b. Accessed 22 October 2018.

[brehaaorgana]

no reblobs just yet

3tznius5this

i would definitely read this and be like "yes, good. all correct things here"

remarried

no no please finish it and post it *chinhands*

oh man I trailed off because I felt kinda stupid, haha. Like...I was thinking of posting on medium, but it’s maybe kind of a waste of time. Here’s most of my draft below the cut, though. Minor TW for animal abuse in history?

“Loving Cats Means Hating Yourself,” and Other Bizarre White Feminist Takes Who knew pets provide the perfect platform for victim-blaming?

I’ll cut to the chase: it is a truth universally acknowledged that whoever writes an Op-Ed piece about why they’re single and going to die alone is going to sound insufferable.

Perhaps the author believes that being “vulnerable” and “honest” will gain them some empathy. Or perhaps they believe people admire their willingness to be self-deprecating. More likely? They’re either too self-absorbed to care that they’ll inevitably come off poorly, or too desperate for the work to not take the risk.

In this case, one at least hopes that Krista Burton got paid for her New York Times opinion piece “I’m a Lesbian Who Hates Cats. I’m Going to Die Alone.” Hopefully it was enough to afford the burial costs of her love life.

And rest assured, her romantic troubles aren’t because she hates cats, but probably because she hates women who like cats —  or more accurately, hates women who like things she doesn’t. In fact, Burton has a list of things that women who she dates can’t like: playing in a band, gaming, yoga or cross-fit, improv, and their own birthday. The list of her deal breakers also include “needs a second mommy,” and “self-loathing/voted for Trump,” but these come off as fair issues of contention, and not merely personal interests other women might have. Pointedly, Burton never says she’s not like “other” women, but she doesn’t need to — the internalized misogyny is there regardless. In Krista Burton’s world, having a cat means you’re a masochist, because cats are haughty, sociopathic, filthy, manipulative, withholding of love and affection, sadistic, and of course “string[ing] you along.” (Did you notice how many of those adjectives are also used to deride women? We’ll come back to that.)

Preferring dogs to cats needn’t be deep or worthy of an op-ed, but when you try to make it into a feminist platform, analyzing the meaning becomes fair game. And if you want to make a pseudo-feminist take on why women loving cats is bad (because we were lacking in misogynistic claims about cat-ladies!), you probably shouldn’t start by blaming the victims of your self-identified cause of the problem:

“I’ve often wondered why women and queers love cats so much, and in the end, I think it might be this: It’s possible we’ve been conditioned to love and perform labor for creatures that don’t necessarily love us back, care about our needs and may even wish us ill. Like women loving cis men. […] People who really love cats are masochists; they’re so happy to be even acknowledged by their evil-yet-adorable pets that they will keep taking care of them indefinitely, aware they’re being used. […] Maybe this is what’s really behind №29 on my list of deal breakers: Truly loving cats means hating yourself.”

Allow me to rephrase that baffling conclusion: Women and LGBT people as a whole have been conditioned to accept a society which expects them to perform emotional labor without reciprocity, and that makes them vulnerable to abuse. People who have been victimized by society are prone to liking cats (who are a reflection of this misogynistic/abusive system) — and if there’s anything Burton in this piece can’t stand, it’s a self-hating, hapless victim.

It’s not too far of a stretch to see why this kind of language might set someone’s teeth on edge — cat lover or no. I don’t claim to know anything about Burton’s personal life, history, or backstory, and yet I can easily pinpoint how Burton’s opinion piece becomes spectacularly un-self-aware, and deeply un-empathetic.

“[T]hey’re so happy to be even acknowledged by their evil-yet-adorable pets that they will keep taking care of them indefinitely, aware they’re being used…”

If, as Burton suggests, we see women loving cis men as analogous to loving cats, then we can rewrite that sentence based on her own comparisons:

“[T]hey’re so happy to be even acknowledged by men that they will keep taking care of them indefinitely, aware they’re being used…truly loving men means hating yourself.”

Pardon the pun, but woof.

That opinion could’ve been an interesting one — especially when discussed in relationship to lesbianism, being LGBT, being a woman, or all of the above. It would’ve had all the shocking punch that Burton’s aiming for with none of the excessive analogies or asinine takes on people’s pets. We wouldn’t have needed to hear about the list of 49 deal breakers: a list that coming from men comes off as a “nice guy” tactic, and coming from women feels like publisher’s exploitation of women’s willingness to humiliate themselves, or to demean other women for their career.

Of course, it still leaves the reader wondering if Burton dislikes other women who have been hurt or abused — either by the system, or by another person — and who fall prey to being victimized again, or who remain in abusive situations or relationships. It certainly comes close to feeling that way: cats represent bad relationships and therefore if you love cats, you love being in relationships with people who’re using you, which makes you self-hating and unworthy to date.

What a reach! What a…bizarrely aggressive take on disliking victims of misogyny, survivors of abuse, or cat-lovers. Or are they all the same thing?

Burton asks a good question, but comes to an unhelpful conclusion: Why do marginalized people “like cats” as a concept so much? It’s probably not that we love the derisiveness of being called a “cat-lady.” It’s not that they’re dirty (they self-clean, dogs do not), it’s not that they’re hateful, and it’s not because they’re beneficial to associate ourselves with. It doesn’t take a genius to realize cats have had a litany of unkind associations applied to them historically — associations Burton helpfully calls to mind.

Rhetorically, it goes a little something like this: dogs are loyal, smart, trustworthy, and masculine; while cats are manipulative, fickle, haughty, evil, vain, untrustworthy, unloving, and feminine. A dog is man’s best friend, and a cat is the witch’s pet. You ought to burn a woman who owns one at the stake.

If this seems dramatic, it is. But it illustrates the point — marginalized people like cats because historically cats have been analogous to us, not our oppressors. There’s no consensus on the origin of the idiom “letting the cat out of the bag,” but here’s a suggestion: prior to the 19th century, cat-burning was form of entertainment in France. In his classic book, The Golden Bough, Sir George James Frazer wrote of the past-time, wherein cat’s ashes would be poured out from the bags they had been burned alive in:

In the midsummer fires formerly kindled on the Place de Grève at Paris it was the custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats, which was hung from a tall mast in the midst of the bonfire; sometimes a fox was burned. The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home, believing that they brought good luck. [...] In the Vosges cats were burned on Shrove Tuesday; in Alsace they were thrown into the Easter bonfire. In the department of the Ardennes cats were flung into the bonfires kindled on the first Sunday in Lent; sometimes, by a refinement of cruelty, they were hung over the fire from the end of a pole and roasted alive.

“The cat, which represented the devil, could never suffer enough.”

In his book, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Robert Darnton elaborates on this practice:

A favorite object [for burning in bonfires] was cats — cats tied up in bags, cats suspended from ropes, or cats burned at stake. Parisians liked to incinerate cats by the sackful, while the Courimauds (or “cour à miaud” or cat chasers) of Saint Chamond preferred to chase a flaming cat through the streets. […] Although the practice varied from place to place, the ingredients were everywhere the same: a “feu de joie” (bonfire), cats, and an aura of hilarious witch-hunting. Wherever the scent of burning felines could be found, a smile was sure to follow.

Letting the cat out of the bag could just as easily have come from the practice of releasing a live cat as it did a dead one – a shrodinger’s idiom, if you will. LGBT people of all genders, and women of all sexualities have historically felt kinship with the concept of felines because we too were the victims of societal cruelties. 

And it doesn’t take a genius to track this connection historically, at least within a Christian-dominant society. In the 1230′s, the a Papal Bull called Vox in Rama was released, and within it was a condemnation of the black cat as an incarnation of satan – who was also half-man, half-black cat. The impact of Vox in Rama is still felt nearly 800 years later, under the guise of calling Black cats bad luck. 

[.....aaand here’s where i trailed off, feeling dumb lmao]

[roidespd-blog]

CHAPTER SEVEN : CONVERSION THERAPY

This one is going to be easy. This is an opinion piece. A inflammatory commentary of some monstrous practices. A pile of insults for a pile of shit : CONVERSATION THERAPY, the worst of humanity with genocides and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

WHAT IS CONVERSATION THERAPY ?

“So-called Conversation Therapy is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression” — Human Rights Campaign

I’ll let The Trevor Project explained it to you : Conversion therapy, sometimes referred to as “reparative therapy,” is any of several dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion therapists use a variety of shaming, emotionally traumatic or physically painful stimuli to make their victims associate those stimuli with their LGBTQ identities. According to studies by the UCLA Williams Institute, more than 700,000 LGBTQ people have been subjected to the horrors of conversion therapy, and an estimated 80,000 LGBTQ youth will experience this unprofessional conduct in coming years, often at the insistence of well-intentioned but misinformed parents or caretakers.

A QUICK HISTORY OF CONVERSATION THERAPY

Early 20th Century. Sigmund Freud stated that homosexuality could sometimes be removed through hypnotic suggestion. In his paper “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman”, he wrote that changing homosexuality was difficult and possible only under unusually good conditions (fear of society’s disapproval was not considered one of those). Success meant making heterosexual feelings possible, not eliminating homosexual feelings. Sure. Different time. Different ideas. Also, fuck you. I will give points to Freud with his response to a letter from a mother whose son was gay : “I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. … it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. … By asking me if I can help [your son], you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted”.

When you think about it, the idea of curing homosexuality through therapy was kind of a step forward, as previous solutions were castration, frying one’s brain OR death.

One of the “great” minds behind modern conversation therapy was psychoanalytic theorist Edmund Bergler. His method could essentially be sum up to “BLAME THE VICTIM”. Bergler used confrontational therapy in which gay people were punished in order to make them aware of their masochism. He violated professional ethics to achieve this, breaking patient confidentiality in discussing the cases of patients with other patients, bullying them, calling them liars and telling them they were worthless. His studies and articles helped classify homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1952. From this period until the Stonewall Riot in 1969, conversion therapy received approval from most of the psychiatric establishment in the United States.

AND THEN CAME THE MOVEMENT

After the Riots, conversion therapy came under increasing attack. In 1973, with pressure from numerous activists and newly formed LGBT groups, The American psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder. Then all were saved from trying to change and every Gay rights were approved by the government. Peace and harmony was finally here. Oh, no. Wait.

AND THEN CAME THE CHRISTIANS

If the APA wasn’t going to treat homosexuals as mentally ill, the Religious Right would. Practicing aversion without any therapist licenses (which helps since they cannot be sued for malpractices), Gurus like Joseph Nicolosi and John Smid went on to create successful programs for years, persuading parents to involve their kids into weeks, months, years even, of costly and intense reconditionings.

Take for example Joseph Nicolosi. His website offers “psychological services to Men and Women whose Same-Sex attraction doesn’t define them”. He is described as a pioneer in the history of psychology, which he left as the profession was slowly abandoning the classic understanding of sexuality as being rooted in design and purpose (their words, not mine). He’s the author of masterpieces such as “Healing Homosexuality”, “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality” and “Shame and Attachment Loss : The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy”. They don’t develop any specifics on how they reduce homosexual tendencies or how they cure the fags, but we can easily imagine.

YOU HAVE THE METHODS TO MAKE US STRAIGHT

The techniques that conversion therapy use are quite varied, but have one point that ties them all. They do not work.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (or Electroshock Therapy) : the art of sending electric charge into your brain, put together that the medical body before meds were like “hey! we’re here too!”. It was created in order to provide improvements in severe symptoms of mental health conditions such as depression, mania, catatonia, aggression and dementia. One that goes through ECT risks memory loss, physical side effects, medical complications, seizures, confusion.

Prayers : because God does not love you and you need to repent and be good. Be good. Be straight. Be what you were supposed to be.

Exorcism : when the prayers don’t work. in 2009 Manifested Glory Ministries came under fire for a youtube video showing a 16-year old being subjected to an exorcism to cure him of his homosexuality. Quote “Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit ! We call you out right now ! Loose your grip, Lucifer” End quote.

Disconnection from exterior influences : That’s what happened to Mathew Shurka, who was forbidden from seeing his mother and sisters for over 3 years, to help him get rid of any “effeminate behavior”. He also went through extensive unlicensed therapy sessions and his father provided him with unprescribed viagra pills. Shurka is now a spokesman for the National Center for Lesbian Rights’s anti-conversion therapy campaign.

Aversive conditioning : the use of something unpleasant, or a punishment, to stop an unwanted behavior. For example, wire a homosexual to an electric machine, showing him porn and electrocuting him every time something sinful (aka gay porn) appears. You can also induce the patient with nausea or paralysis. Sometimes it’s not as drastic, with the use of elastic band to slap on you wrist.

Behavioral reconditioning : lessons about masculinity and femininity. Ways to improve posture, voice modification, walking patterns, etc.

The 12-step program : borrowed from the Alcoholics Anonymous program. As you try to manage your disease, you truly need to atone from your sins and ask for forgiveness.

MEANWHILE IN FRANCE

As most of the rest of Europe, Conversation Therapy is not strictly banned by law. Malte was the first european country to outlaw CT, with a year in prison and a 10.000 euros fine. Worldwide, only Brazil, Canada and a couple of US states (including California) have laws to protect LGBT+ citizens from this mental genocide that is CT.

In France, though on the marginal side, there is a few groups that provide services to cure someone from the evil of gay life. The government, which doesn’t seem to really care that much about it, had a hard time evaluating how many of them exist. Gay activist and author Louis-George Tin gives an estimate number of five to six. He also warns that licensed therapists still try to heal homosexuality in secret sessions. 

A first crisis of consciousness appeared in 2012 when an evangelical group called “Torrents de vie” offered services to reconnect with a saint heterosexuality, true femininity and true masculinity for the sweet deal of 410 euros. After the intervention of LGBT groups, the government started an investigation under the law that protects citizens against cults (as Conversation Therapy is a cult, don’t mistake it for anything else). Since then, few cases went forward in the country but this year, Majority Deputy Laurence Vanceunebrock-Mailon announced her intentions to write an official text to outlaw groups that pretend to change sexual orientations from gay to straight. It is supposed to be available to the assembly before summer 2019.

A CURE FOR ILLNESS

Guys, I’m launching my own Conversion Therapy in a few weeks.

It’s called “Don’t give up, Sweet Bigot”. As a unlicensed medical expert in anything, I can only give what you can call “life advice” and offer “hang out” sessions to those who seek redemption from the path of bigotry. You don’t like gay people ? You still they are sinful and worthy of burning in Hell ? The worst that society has to offer ? (thought we agreed the Kardashians were, but okay). This program is for YOU. Come and join me (for the extraordinary start-up prize of my monthly rent) and I’ll will show you how to accept more people, all colors, sex, gender, choices, life goals. Practices include midnight showings of my favorite gay porn on pornhub, going to ONE orgy (not multiple, I’m not that much of a party freak), having drinks by the Seine for our monthly Apero Queer, dancing time to the best of modern pop has to offer (see June 4th article, bigots), and off course, Electroconvulsive Therapy. GO TO www.sweetbigot.org AND GET FREE GLITTER NOW !

You may not know what conversion therapy and it may not be as deadly as HIV or daily physical attacks on LGBT+ members around the world, but it kills. Those who went through that torture fest are eight times more likely to commit suicide in the years that follow. Garrard Conley wrote a wonderful memoir about his time at Love in Action. It was adapted in a very informative film also titled “Boy Erased”. There’s also “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”, check it out.

Don’t send your kids there. It’s not love to try and change someone. It’s abuse. I’m gonna follow closely the events of this possible law against conversation therapy in France. We are painfully uninformed about what is going on around us. Time to kick some Jesus Freaks’ butts.

[thesagechronicles]

“The studio behind the upcoming Aladdin remake (directed by Guy Ritchie) reportedly struggled to cast a Brown actor who can act, sing, and dance—after much Internet uproar, newcomer Mena Massoud and the light-skinned white and Indian actress Naomi Scott were cast as Aladdin and Jasmine. Besides the obvious issues with a major studio saying there simply wasn’t a “right fit” among 2,000 actors who auditioned for this role, there’s definitely an elephant in the room, and this time, it’s not Abu in the second half of the movie. That elephant is the source material of Aladdin itself—a misogynist, xenophobic white fantasy. No surface-level representation such as casting Mena Massoud, Dev Patel, or Riz Ahmed in the lead role would have changed that.

Aladdin is set in nonsense “Agrabah,” a faraway place that’s “barbaric, but hey, it’s home,” a line so racist Disney changed it the year after. Agrabah is basically “Arabland,” a fictional place that real Americans are down to bomb, replete with popular imaginations of the Middle East as a sandy desert under the rule of violent Islam. In the opening scene, after we are introduced to the exotic climate by a heavily-accented vendor who tries to sell us his wares, Aladdin skillfully avoids being punished for thieving. He later saves Jasmine from the same fate—if you steal in a violent place like Arabland, you lose your hand.

Aladdin is a white fantasy, and that’s hardly surprising, because the film is basically some white guy’s foggy notion of the Orient. It’s most likely a made-up story, added to a translation of A Thousand and One Nights by a French guy in the 18th century. Directed by white guys Ron Clements and John Musker, the 1992 movie was written by them and other white guys Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Its cast featured not even one Arab or South Asian voice actor.

Disney may be catching flak now for its poor representation of the POC experience, but let’s not forget that at the time, Disney was known for making stories just about white people and marketed Aladdin to people “of all races” in its “biggest ethnic marketing campaign ever, selling the film to Black and Hispanic children in the U.S. Disney thus conceives of “Brown” as a monolith that could encompass Middle Eastern, South Asian, Black, and Latinx experiences, so a “Brown” story could appeal and represent all shades of skin—making “representation” yet another careless rendition of the Other. Aladdin is thus fixed firmly within the gaze of white supremacy—the superior, Christian society that is not mentioned directly, but alluded to in juxtaposition to the brutal depictions of a hybrid Arab-South Asian culture and the film’s underlying anti-Islam messaging. At the time of its release, Aladdin served as a panacea, a sweeping solution to the vacuum of non-white narratives for children, callously delivered in a continuation of its rich racist legacy. This movie was, essentially, a way to justify neocolonial, imperialist white feminism. The film director Jean-Luc Godard noted Americans tell the “best stories” because they “invade a country and immediately construct a narrative justifying it.”

Misrepresentation of Islam is a uniquely Western weaponization of oriental tropes. As Edward Said said of depictions of orientalism,”whenever in modern times there has been an acutely political tension felt between the Occident and its Orient (or between the West and its Islam), there has been a tendency to resort in the West not to direct violence but first to the cool, relatively detached instruments of scientific, quasi-objective representation.” At the core of this Aladdin remake is a response to rising Islamophobia, but not the woke kind you hope for. Because of the Islamophobic nature of the source material, without significant changes, this remake  is in tacit support of Islamophobia. As Said goes on to explain,“in this way Islam is made more clear, the true nature of its threat appears, an implicit course of action against it is proposed.” Between the timing of the movie during a huge rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and the (mostly white) people behind the camera, it’s hard to be hopeful about Disney’s motives.

The 1992 movie’s racism extends beyond its setting by presenting a plethora of classic, deleterious Othering: It mispronounces Arab words including “Allah,” depicts nonsense scribble instead of real Arabic script, and codes its characters to reinforce racist and Islamophobic tropes. Main characters that the audience is meant to admire, like Aladdin and Jasmine, have Western features, lighter skin, and American accents, while nefarious or impoverished characters like Jafar and shopkeepers have beards, hooked noses, and thick, Middle Eastern accents. Jafar’s evil is further manifested in his curly beard, traditional clothing, and “queer coding”—while Aladdin is clean-shaven, mostly shirtless, and very hetero. These kinds of audiovisual cues are not accidents in the slightest. Want to know the real reason it’s “impossible” to find a good Brown fit for Aladdin? It’s because Aladdin’s character design was inspired by Tom Cruise.

Let’s not forget Genie, an important non-human character who embodies the vile trope of the magical negro, a term popularized by Spike Lee in 2001 to describe a saintly Black character who exists to illuminate a white character’s emotional journey. Genie, who lives only to serve, complains throughout the film of eternal servitude, and longs for freedom. This character is going to be played by Will Smith in the live-action film, and I only hope Disney agrees that the character is due for an upgrade.

Embedded deep within the obvious orientalism in Aladdin’s landscape is an unsolvable issue, unsolvable because it is inextricable from this boys’-adventure tale plot. It’s Jasmine. Jasmine, who has a decidedly non-Arabic, but still oriental and feminine name, and was named after a non-Arab actress, is introduced to us as a probably-teenager who is being forced “by law” (and her Santa-faced, bumbling father) to marry within three days of the movie’s beginning. She is the canvas on which white feminism paints its own image: She doesn’t wear a hijab (except for when she’s masquerading as a poor and thus “backward” Muslim) and longs for love in a marriage while playing with caged birds. She’s the “right kind of Muslim”—the rich woman who bears little cultural markers of difference and rejects the shackles of her religion for liberated sex. She is voiced by blonde Linda Larkin, who gave the character a breathy baby voice, fitting in with the rest of her persona: a barely-clad, animated sex doll whose fate revolves around the men in the story (This is where white feminism as written by white dudes fails miserably).

Jasmine has very little agency; her role in the film is entirely dependent on the men around her—her father, who admits that it’s not just because of the law that he’s forcing her to marry, but because he wants a man to “take care of her;” Jafar, who first wants to marry her for the power but then reveals it’s just lust for young flesh; an Aladdin, who spends most of the movie stalking her, going so far as to break into her bedroom at night and lie about his identity. And let’s not forget that sex slave scene, where a cuffed Jasmine seduces Jafar in what could only be BDSM fodder.

Jasmine has a few moments of self-determination, even if tinged with desperation—she escapes the palace to see the world, and invokes her role as princess to save Aladdin. But unlike Gautama Buddha who escaped his sheltered life as a prince to understand suffering, Jasmine goes on a joyride-sans-car to find romance and adventure in the arms of a prototypical aspirational street rat who’s obsessed with proving his “worth” and watches her palace from afar with unabashed longing. This rapscallion can show her a “whole new world,” access that he has on account of his secular inherent value as a “diamond in the rough.” Jasmine is only released from the “law” at the end of the movie when her father tearfully looks on as Aladdin and she canoodle, finally happy that the ownership of the “beautiful bloom” is satisfactorily passed onto a man who has proven he can protect her—a man who brings Americanized ideals of love marriages and cross-class pairings to Jasmine’s fettered life. Ella Shohat notes in “Gender in Hollywood’s Orient,” ”darker women, marginalized within the narrative, appear largely as sexually hungry subalterns.”

The most damning evidence of the intersectional misogyny of Aladdin? Jasmine is the only woman character. That is, if you don’t count the “loose” women and commoners who make fleeting cameos in songs with no real lines. Orientalism colludes with misogyny to subjugate women of color in a unique way.

This is the problem with fairy tales. They present alternate universes that explain our own. They’re peddled by oppressors and designed to make us feel better about our lack of awareness and our privilege. Your beloved Aladdin explains why Brown people are an evil monolith, and need to be subjugated by Western imperialism and liberated by white feminism.

In Agrabah, people are barbaric but a select few are just like us—in search of love, sweet secular love. Bemoaning the casting choices of white ass Guy Ritchie and his film bro crew is not going to improve POC representation in Hollywood or change the basic issue with Aladdin—which is Aladdin itself. Trust me.”

-ADITI NATASHA KINI

[shipinpeace]

RE: Women and m/m fiction

Continued from this

@twoblogz​ Thank you for your response and the link. I would like to comment on it and I’d like @anakinsbugs​ to read it as well, because it is directly related to his post. 

Before I begin, let me make this clear: I am glad posts like this exist and people discuss the issues of how gay men are portrayed in the media (both officially released and fan created). We still live in a homophobic world and there is so much that has become the status quo for gay fiction, and the way it affects gay men is a crucial topic to discuss and share. However, discussing issues and attacking other are not the same.

First of all, neither you, not anakinsbugs specify what what fetishizing is and where does one draw the line between fetishizing and representation. Moreover, are gay men allowed to fetishize male/male relationships? If yes, how is that fetishizing different from fetishizing by women if the end result is the same?

The author mentions the women who started the whole slash movement in the 70s. Well if it wasn‘t for them, we don‘t know how long it would take for male/male relationships to get so popular. That (the Kirk/Spock community in particular) was what began slash as a fandom phenomenon and it has played a pivotal role in slash fiction (written by anyone) being so widespread today. 

The author said he was feeling like an outsider in the genre, which is a perspective I never thought about. I wish the genre felt more welcoming towards him, but I still believe this shouldn’t stop him or other male content creators from creating their own stuff. Why not make a tumblr blog where you collect stuff made by men? 

Next he discusses male/male in published literature and points out that most published authors are women and their books get more recognition. Well, it‘s a problem in our society, if books about gay people written by straight people are more popular than the ones written by gay people themselves. Think about it. If the public consumes the former, yet pretty much ignores the latter, would banning the books written by women make the ones written by men more popular? Not while we have homophobia. 

In my discussion with practicalityinpraxis they talk about this exact point:

“When a straight person writes queer characters, even very poorly, they tend to have their work touted and complimented excessively. It’s “avant garde,” it’s “intimate,” it’s “powerful,” it’s “perspective shifting.”

When queer authors write queer characters, it gets shoved off as autobiographical niche fiction that is never given the exposure necessary to turn it into a success.”

And sadly, that’s exactly what’s happening and more people should be aware of it. However, we shouldn’t forget that it’s publishers who make decisions here and their decisions are guided by money.

However, I don’t believe all books written by women show bad or inaccurate depictions. If it wasn’t for some of those books, gay men would barely get any representation at all, because, as the author said, books written by men are less popular, therefore they would still be not as easy to find.

At the same time, a book written by a man can be just as “shallow” as a book written by a woman. As I mentioned in the same discussion with practicalityinpraxis:

“Although I do agree that in essence queer writers are more likely to, as you put it, “fight for the accuracy” of their stories, it doesn’t mean all do. A queer author might agree to water down their work if the editor refuses to publish it otherwise. A queer person might also have internalized prejudice against their own identity, which in turn would make their work unrepresentative.”

Next, the topic of sex is discussed. I agree there’s a huge issue of inaccurate representation when sex is depicted in literature. But what about a gay male author who has never had sex? Would his sex scenes automatically be accurate just because he’s a gay man? Also, don’t gay men have fetishes?

As for safe sex – it is an issue in all sorts of pornographic literature. Written by anyone about anyone. I think (but that’s just my subjective opinion based on nothing but observation) that it is related to the desire for escapism. People may want to emerge in a world that is different from their own, or a world that provides them immediate gratification, neither of which is a bad thing, really. We all need different things to let of steam and we all deserve it. 

Also, what about the barebacking community? Gay men who promote unsafe sex in real life?

And here is it, the reason I keep arguing with people on this topic:

“and when men who love men like myself bring up the fact that maybe you guys should stay in your lane a little and let us take the wheel in a genre entirely dedicated to us having sex with each other, you somehow claim that we are “kinkshaming” you and being misogynist by taking away “the one place where women can explore their kinks without judgement”.”

Should stay in their lane? What does that imply? Does the author want to forbid women from writing gay male fiction? Let’s say he succeeds and women do just that. Then what? Will male/male fiction automatically improve? The depictions become more realistic? Safe sex gets portrayed more often? Fetishizing disappears? Weird kinks disappear? Homophobia disappears?  

First of all, it’s not very likely that published authors will ever care about this, so the people who are most likely to obey this demand are fans. Which means the only thing the author would have accomplished would be bully a bunch of fans into dropping a hobby they love (or might emotionally depend on – people are very complex creatures), stripping them away of the only thing some might consider escapism. And for what? To feel better about himself? 

I know these are harsh words and I’m sorry for being so blunt, but anakinsbugs, please, if you’re reading this, I ask you to consider this possibility no matter how uncomfortable it might feel. I deeply sympathize with your feelings and I wish we lived in a better world, but we don’t. And many people who share your point of view are only one step away from becoming bullies.

The author also adds “the one place where women can explore their kinks without judgement” as it’s something unbelievable and ludicrous, but that’s a reality for most women. They have been shamed for desiring sex for so long, no wonder for some gay sex has become the only safe outlet of their sexuality.

However:

“which is complete and total bullshit because FIRST OF ALL gay people are not your kink.”

And this is something I agree with 100%. When I first read saw him mention “kinks”, I thought he was being general, but if people consider gay sex a kink - it is deeply troubling. Frankly, I haven’t encountered such opinion in a long time, although I wouldn’t be surprised someone still thinks this way. But it’s one of these homophobic remarks we can fight by educating people.

At the end, the author states:

“i need a little more clarification about why it’s such an evil no-no for us to want to represent ourselves or speak for ourselves or tell our own stories. because it kinda seems homophobic that you’re so angry about gbt men wanting to represent themselves.”

and: 

“nobody’s saying you can’t be supportive of gbt boys and want to write about them in your stories. but for the love of god, don’t get angry when we want to tell our own stories, and don’t pitch a fit when we express that we’re uncomfortable with being objectified for your own sexual gratification.”

There is a difference between expressing discomfort and policing. Perhaps the author didn’t mean it, but then I’d like him to consider better wording. 

Sorry for making it so long. I’ve put the whole thing under cut so if you reblog it, it won’t spam your blog.