#conflation 2023

[fairykukla]

Last night I finally got to debut my sea witch costume.

Shown here with my tentacle shrug/wrap.

Here's a close up of my makeup and hair:

And mask, of course.

I sang Poor Unfortunate Souls at karaoke.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Small Joys

literary fiction set in 2005 rural south England

follows a depressed/anxious young Black man who’s moved back to his hometown after dropping out of uni, becoming friends with the excessively joyful new flatmate who takes him under his wing

recognising mental health struggles and harmful relationship and finding community and happiness

music, birdwatching

gay MC, ace-coded SC

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

there's currently misinformation going around tumblr about what the SSI marriage penalty is, so this is my attempt to explain it in plain language.

when you marry someone who is not on SSI, and you are on SSI, their income is counted as your income. your SSI will be docked according to their income from then on. if their income outstrips your SSI (maximum SSI is $914 a month as of 2023), you will be ineligible for SSI from then on.

if two people on SSI get married, their maximum SSI benefits are reduced by 25%. they no longer get SSI as individuals, they get SSI as a couple, which is 25% less money than individuals are eligible for.

collectively, these two processes are known as the marriage penalty.

some news outlets are currently (September 2023) incorrectly reporting a bill as removing the marriage penalty. this is false. the bill is changing the savings cap for married couples on SSI. the savings cap is the amount of money you are allowed to save in your personal account before being kicked off SSI. this is different from the marriage penalty, and outlets referring to them as the same are conflating two different laws that apply to SSI recipients. please do not assume based on mis-worded news articles that you can get married without losing your income and health care if this bill passes. you may be putting yourself in danger by doing so.

[fishyartist]

INFORMATION: https://decolonizepalestine.com/faq (information about Palestine)

https://www.ochaopt.org/crisis (up to date information on reported death tolls)

https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds (information about the BDS movement)

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/09/antisemitism-dangerous/ (short article about the difference between antisemitism and anti Zionism, and why conflating the two is dangerous. More articles from the same site here)

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

https://cartoonist.coop/journal/cartoonist-cooperative-buy-an-e-sim-for-gaza-donation-drive/ (esims allow Palestinians to contact each other+the outside world during Israel-created blackouts. Through this you can donate esims and get cool art)

https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page (UNRWA is a UN program created to provided lifesaving assistance, employment and direct relief to Palestinian refugees. Their funding was cruelly cut severely by several countries, including the US, during the humanitarian crisis in Gaza)

https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide (Palestinian-lead movement to challenge international support for Israeli apartheid+colonization through boycott, divestment, and sanctions [hence BDS]. Linked to their site earlier for more info, this is specifically what they’re calling on us to boycott+pressure and why, while emphasizing a need to focus effort on vocally boycotting a small number of brands for maximum impact)

LINK (CLICK ME) TO MORE WAYS YOU CAN HELP

[avi-on-jumblr]

awful tweet warning:

Before I describe everything that's wrong with this tweet, let me transcribe Stephen Fry's words:

I am Stephen Fry, and I am a Jew. The great Irish thinker and writer Conor Cruise O'Brien once said that antisemitism is a light sleeper. Well, it seems to have woken up of late. The horrendous events of October 7th, and the Israeli response, seem to have stirred up this ancient hatred. It's agonizing to see all violence and destruction that is unfolding, and the terrible loss of life on both sides brings me an overwhelming sadness and heartache. But whatever our opinions on what is happening, there can be no excuse for the behaviour of some of our citizens. Since October the 7th, there have been 50 separate reported incidents of antisemitism every single day in London alone, an increase of 1350%, according to the Metropolitan police. Shop windows smashed, stars of David and swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish properties, synagogues, and cemeteries. Jewish schools have been forced to close. There is real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain. Jewish people here are becoming fearful of showing themselves, in Britain, in 2023.

(Then it cuts off.)

For those who still don't know why this tweet was ignorant and inane, let me explain.

"To hear him conflate antiZionism with antisemitism has shocked me."

Guess how many times Stephen Fry mentions zionism? Zero! Guess how many times he mentions the country of Israel? Zero! (Unless you count "the Israeli response" which is unrelated to the existence of the country, or Zionism at all.) What this person is saying, is that they consider the smashing of shop windows, and the vandalism and marking of Jewish property, to be anti-Zionism. Considering they are an anti-Zionist, by following their logic, we can conclude that they not only believe this destruction and harassment is acceptable, but they believe it is ethical.

Further, they accuse him of showing no care for the Palestinians, even though he explicitly states that the loss of life on both sides brings him overwhelming sadness.

Finally, they accuse him of "[Centring] people in this country". It is disturbing that this person believes one cannot be concerned over two issues at a time. It perpetuates the idea that we can only talk about the "worst oppression" and talking about anything else means you are complicit in "silencing" someone else. If this were true, we would not be allowed to talk about Gaza either, or Ukraine, or police brutality, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and so on and so on, because clearly there are other issues with hundreds of thousands more deaths, and millions more displacements, so why bring attention to it ever?

Unfortunately, people are not talking about those countries, like Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo, and more, and anyone who does is spammed with "free Palestine" comments. In fact, the most I've heard people talking about Sudan is when these TikTok geopolitical experts attempt to spam the Palestinian flag and get it wrong.

This is not new. This is obviously not new. I have seen tweets like these every single day in the hundreds for the last 80 days. It is not surprising that people think smashing windows is "anti-zionism", nor that they think it good. It is not surprising that they hear a Jew speak, and experience shock and disgust, regardless of what we say.

I do wonder if they would regard anything short of a second Holocaust as antisemitism.

[anistarrose]

So, it's not a moral failing to be bad at what I'm about to describe. But collectively, most of Tumblr is bad at identifying polls that function as bait for bigotry and harassment. Polls that, either intentionally or unintentionally, encourage people to spew hatred about a marginalized queer sub-community — because that sub-community is considered, at least by some, an acceptable enough target.

Most of us have probably seen that polyamory poll go around (as of September 2024). Fewer people have probably taken a look at the notes on that poll — and in many ways, that's for the best, because a lot of the notes are fucking vile. I won't link the poll itself, but content warning for threats of domestic violence and suicide in just this sampling. I don't know enough about the poll creator to make assumptions towards their intent, but that poll was functionally bait, acting as encouragement for people to spew vitriol and bigotry.

And none of this is specific to that individual poll! In December 2023, a single person made a series of polls about friends with benefits, and the "question" of whether aromantic heterosexual cisgender men were queer — and those polls led to huge waves of arophobia and sex negativity (inseparable from, let's be honest, some mask-off radfem shit). On top of that, multiple polls about people's feelings towards sex, or experiences with such, have turned into a festival for bashing both asexuals and virgins — insofar as the people doing the bashing use those words as anything but interchangeable insults.

Polyamorous people. Aromantic people, especially aromantic allosexuals. Asexual people, especially those who are virgins or sex-repulsed. That's a clear and obvious trend — they're all people who do relationships differently. People whose relationships and identities are considered "cringe." Who are considered acceptable targets to mock within the queer community. Making fun of "polycule drama," making fun of "queerplatonic," making fun of a-spec microlabels.

So many people who call themselves sex-positive refuse to extend that positivity to polyamorous people and aromantic people. To casual sex, to sex without monogamous romance. They insist that the polyamorous, the aromantic, are in fact the predators, the abusers, the degenerate queers that the conservative pearl-clutching queerphobes were right about. They tack on asexuals to the "abuser" category, too, because allegedly no one could ever be happy in a relationship with an asexual; because allegedly it's manipulative to your partner to refuse sex! Meanwhile, asexuality and sex repulsion are conflated with the completely different concept of sex negativity, twisting the language of sexual liberation to demonize asexuals further...

And yes, polls play a role in all of this! Of course, not every poll about sexual experiences, for one example, is a poll intended to bait or to harm people! But if they blow up, there is a high risk of people feeling emboldened to comment things like: "so many people are okay with casual sex, or multiple sexual partners! this is what's wrong with the world, it's all just toxic hookup culture!" Or if not that, then things like: "look how few people on this virgin loser website have had sex! this is what's responsible for cultural sex negativity! they'd all be better, more progressive queers if they just got laid more!"

And that's not even getting into the obvious, and obviously intentional bait. The "cishet aromantic men" poll, most egregiously. Clout-chasers hide behind the veil of "I'm just curious about people's opinions!" and then, put out a poll catered to the most rancid, exclusionist, verging-on-radfem opinions. At the very least, catered to platforming them seriously, when people inevitably feel emboldened to say that shit they've been thinking.

And "emboldened" really is the key word here. These polls increase the social acceptability of saying cruel shit about polyamorous people, a-spec people, and whoever else becomes the queer community's acceptable target of the year. The groups discussed in this post are by no means the only popular targets for harassment and exclusionism, but they are some of the most egregious examples I've seen personally, and they are tied together by their non-normative approaches to relationships or lack thereof. Moreover, the groups overlap — I am personally aromantic and asexual, not polyamorous — but even then, my struggles with amatonormativity overlap with those of polyamorous people.

And I bring this up because for years, I've witnessed popular Tumblr bloggers attack a-specs and polyamorous people within the same posts. With the same tactics, using cringe culture in addition to demonizing alternative types of relationships. Now, polls are another weapon for harassing us. And, it is... absolutely exhausting.

Of course, there's obviously a sliding scale of how prone polls can be to harassment. I don't think polls just asking about people's sexual experiences need to be totally anathemized and blotted off the face of the earth, for example — but you know, maybe consider searching OP's blog for "asexual" and some other keywords before you reblog one?

Furthermore, maybe just don't reblog polls about "does X count as LGBTQ," even if you're in support, because you're still legitimizing the poll to begin with. Maybe proceed with caution with posts that mention polyamory, even if not in an inflammatory way, unless maybe you know that OP is polyam themselves. Maybe block, obviously don't harass, but just silently and unceremoniously block people that make a lot of clout-chasing polls about controversial queer issues.

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert on catching these red flags myself — the first time I saw the polyamory poll, I ignored it just because it was irrelevant to me as a non-partnering person, not because I clocked it as something that would generate hate and threats. So really, if I do have a plea to end on — it's just to listen to people, polyam and a-spec and otherwise, when they say that some post is generating hate and threats towards them. And then, maybe, try to learn some red and orange flags from the experience.

None of us are part of every queer sub-community that Tumblr loves to harass. We all have blind spots, and that's inevitable, not a failure of you as a person. But after seeing so many of these bait polls go around, after seeing multiple rallying effects in the communities followed by people letting their guards down, and circulating a slightly different bait poll... well? I just hope that eventually, people will be willing to learn.

[biracy]

I can't remember if I've posted abt this before but regardless: I'm sorry but I really and truly cannot get behind the idea that there is any wide-scale societal "pressure for trans men to be feminine" or "to be twinks" or whatever. You are either conflating a very small online community's beauty standard (usually some kind of transmasc pseudo-appropriation of "femboy" aesthetics, which yes, are often Bad and regressive and fetishized and etc.) with Mainstream Society, or confusing society not wanting trans men to transition with "wanting trans men to be feminine", which are certainly not the same thing. Ultimately if a cis person believes there is any validity to the concept of being trans (i.e. not a Posie Parker-esque "there's no such thing as a trans person" type), they are more likely to think that trans men should be like as masc and buff and hairy as possible or whatever bc that's what cis people think men look like and it's easier for a lot of people to recognize someone who Looks Masc as a man. It is difficult sometimes to see derision of trans guys who are Too Feminine and Not Hairy Enough or whatever (which is not always something someone has control over btw) as anything but "this is Skye who I think is a confused little girl because Skye does not pass" slightly restyled for 2023 "filthcore fagdykes" or whatever lol

[marypickfords]

“While attending Smith College from 1915 to 1919, the white girl crafted mixed-media diaries where she engages in epistolary soliloquies with an imaginary male interlocutor named ‘Jonathan.’ [...] A fear of morbidity pervades [Helena Edna] Davis’s letters to Jonathan, their self-accusatory tone as constant and troubling as that threading through Medora Espy’s contemporaneous diaries. Drawing on clinical terminology, Davis characterizes her ‘moods and strange feelings’ as symptoms of being ‘supersensitive or extremely sentimental.’ ‘Queer isn’t it?’ the nineteenyear-old muses, rhetorically conflating multiple vectors of divergence under perceived pathology. Davis goes on to describe herself as ‘supersensitive—or else crazy!,’ a ‘sentimental nut,’ ‘a huge joke,’ and ‘plain nuts.’ [...] Davis fleshes out this self-diagnosed deviance through film consumption. Her college diaries are dotted with drawings, newspaper clippings, stage programs, and amateur Kodaks, but only one image of a celebrity: Lillian Gish. A pocket-sized headshot, the sepia ephemera is collaged next to an entry where the moviegoer shares her secret ‘queer’ yearning: ‘I wish I were a man.’ Davis continues in a pressed speech, ‘I wouldn’t let Cora and Beth know it for the world. But there are times!—. . . I wonder, sometimes, that they don’t suspect. I hunger for it so, & they never understand!’ ‘Isn’t Lillian Gish appropriate up there?’ the girl blurts out at the end of her admission.”

— Diana W. Anselmo, from A Queer Way of Feeling: Girl Fans and Personal Archives of Early Hollywood (2023)

[everyday-is-brighter-with-you]

[ ID: Tweets from jia whose handle is @heartkiss_ on 28 October 2023 reading:

what is happening in palestine and sudan and the congo are not disparate causes that require dividing our attention, it is the same fight, several groups are facing occupation without coverage while palestine is being scapegoated, standing with palestine is standing with the rest

it's similar, in my mind, to how standing with haiti when they are repeatedly made an example of on the world stage is never solely about haiti, but about standing with the carribean, with enslaved africans, and with indigenous peoples across the 'new world' in general

corrections, as growing up in the imperial (imperial is censored with an exclamation mark) core has skewed my perspective: 1.calling congo "the congo" has imperialist (imperialist is censored with an exclamation mark) implications 2. while it's fair to link western black struggles to palestine the erasure of genocide on the african continent is more complicated than I thought

we can't conflate what is happening in congo or sudan to palestine, there is a history of northern african countries and countries in the middle east denying the atrocities there due to antiblack sentiment, we ought to highlight that erasure in discussions about global solidarity

end ID]

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

"Authoritarians may seek to control an individual's body. Since anti-oppression is the basis for anarchist thought, some individuals or groups have found that those who identify as anarchists are most sensitive to accusations of being oppressive. This sensitivity is exploited in order to conflate a mere opinion with fact, giving it the power to control. This may range from an opinion that one race has ownership over a particular hairstyle, to an opinion that one sex has ownership over a particular gender or gender expression. Authoritarians may then seek to ban individuals who openly disagree with these opinions from events or spaces, or even enact physical violence on them."

"Authoritarians who find power with identity politics are quick to disregard, silence, or altogether erase perspectives that are not socially valuable in upholding their dogmatic and unnuanced view of oppression. Any ideas coming from those belonging to the oppressed category are given precedence, regardless of their relevance to anti-authoritarianism; while any ideas held by those belonging to the oppressor category are automatically treated as suspect or less worthy of consideration.

This leads to the acceptance and proliferation of a subculture where those perceived as oppressors are intentionally given less opportunity than those categorized as oppressed. Rather than creating genuine equality by abolishing identity categories (along with their corresponding forms of oppression), the larger social hierarchy is inverted, and oppressive power is merely transferred rather than destroyed."

[fairykukla]

My Saturday look. I had intended to dress up as Captain hook, and had all my gear to do so, but I didn't have the energy to "be" the character. And I didn't have any other male-presenting clothing with me to dude around in, so I went with this easy and comfortable attire.

I was doing tarot readings in the game room for a few hours. That was nice.

[bisquid]

Civil war started in Russia because the fascist neonazi War Crimes Elite™ group Putin hired (because his own military was too incompetent) have decided that they would be Better Dictators Than Putin, Actually, and have occupied at least one Russian city.

The vast majority of Russian citizens would really like nobody to die, thank you, but are trapped in a dictatorship ramming them repeatedly into fucking disaster because Putin is a selfish lil crybaby with delusion of grandeur

So civil war started in russia because its citizens want to kill Ukrainians more effectively. Why am I not surprised

[thebubblesoutlet]

Angelica asmr (who made a whole lot of funny leftist tumblr-adjacent queer content) making a hard right pivot and coming out as transphobic, trump-supporting radfem because of her "christian beliefs" then CONFLATING paedophilia with queernes is NOT something I had on my 2023 bingo cards

[ineffable-opinions]

Ah meant scholarly sources, I have read your posts (well written!) but not watched the videos (it is hard for me to focus on sound). :) thank you

Hey anon, based on your previous ask and this one, here are some scholarly sources that I have saved on the computer I am currently using. [I have more on another computer which I will be able to share those in a week or so. Done!]

How to access these sources?

[For context: 'Problematizing the Problem' section of my post Seme/uke - long response is being discussed and scholarly sources are for the questions (given below) I raised.]

Why would ‘het people’ or any people for that matter think in terms of male-female / masculine-feminine binaries? Do they think in those binaries only and not other binaries such as wen(文)-wu(武)? Why think in binaries and dichotomies at all? Don’t they not think in terms of multiplicity of genders/gender expressions such as various kinds of masculinities and femininities) based off on their local contexts? 

Do queer people not make such/similar conflations? (Hint: they do.)

Is it a problem? While this seems to be the popular notion, plenty of scholars from across the globe has dismantled it.

I must admit that this was written following The Right Way to Be Gay - Who Can Tell? in a manner in which these questions would be treated as already answered. When read as a stand-alone, these questions would remain as food for thought at best.

seme uke - Japan

Cartographies of Desire: Male-male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 - Gregory M. Pflugfelder

Reimagining male-male sexuality: representations in Japanesemodern literature and gay manga by Nicholas James Hall

The Great Mirror of Male Love - Saikaku Ihara, Paul Gordon Schalow (translator)

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan - Gary Leupp

In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality In Meiji Literature by Jim Reichert (199-208)

different takes on queerness from across the globe - LGBTQ+ and others:

Between Men, part of the ‘Key Population Series’, 2003 [link]

Hames, Raymond B.; Garfield, Zachary H.; and Garfield, Melissa J., “Is Male Androphilia a Context-Dependent Cross-Cultural Universal?” (2017). Anthropology Faculty Publications. 132.

Lambevski, S.A., 1999. Suck my nation - masculinity, ethnicity and the politics of (Homo) sex. Sexualities, 2(4), pp.397-419.

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan’s Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

Aneka, B. (2014). Jogappa: Gender, Identity and the Politics of Exclusion.

Stief, M. (2017). The sexual orientation and gender presentation of hijra, kothi, and panthi in Mumbai, India. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 73-85.

Gill, H. (2016). Kothi. The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of gender and sexuality studies, 1-2.

Hossain, A., & Rahman, M. (2024). Beyond homocolonialism: working towards queer decoloniality in Bangladesh. International Politics, 1-16.

different types of masculinities and femininities and queer people (conflations, adaptations, etc.):

Wijngaarden JW de L van. Male Homosexuality in 21st-Century Thailand: A Longitudinal Study of Young, Rural, Same-Sex-Attracted Men Coming of Age. Anthem Press; 2021. [link] [link]

Polmuk, C. (2023). Provincialising Thai Boys Love: Queer Desire and the Aesthetics of Rural Cosmopolitanism. [link]

Vasudevan, A. (2024). From Deficient Masculinity to Relational Plenitude: Language and Ethics among Thirunangai s in Southern India. Men and Masculinities, 27(4), 392-409.

Bakshi, K. (2022). Writing the LGBTIHQ+ movement in Bangla: emergence of queer epistemologies in Kolkata in the early days of queer political mobilizations. South Asian History and Culture, 13(2), 231–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2022.2067636

Halkitis, Perry N., '(Hyper) Masculinity', Out in Time: The Public Lives of Gay Men from Stonewall to the Queer Generation (New York, 2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 20 June 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190686604.003.0007

Kong, T.S.K. (2010). Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203849200

Wang, S. (2020). Chinese gay men pursuing online fame: erotic reputation and internet celebrity economies. Feminist Media Studies, 20(4), 548–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1754633

in relation to yaoi and BL:

Nagaike, K. (2012). Perverse sexualities, perverse desires: representations of female fantasies and Yaoi manga as pornography directed at women. In Fantasies of Cross-dressing: Japanese Women Write Male-Male Erotica (pp. 103-134). Brill.

Yaoi Ronsō: Discussing Depictions of Male Homosexuality in Japanese Girls' Comics, Gay Comics and Gay Pornography Wim Lunsing

Williams, A. (2015). Rethinking yaoi on the regional and global scale. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 37.

Pužar, A. (2023). " BL"(Boy Love)," GL"(Girl Love) and Female Communities of Practice and Affect in South Korea. Družboslovne razprave, 39(102), 63-84.

Mizoguchi, A. (2008). Reading and living Yaoi: Male-male fantasy narratives as women's sexual subculture in Japan. University of Rochester.

Kristine Michelle L. Santos (2020) The bitches of Boys Love comics: the pornographic response of Japan’s rotten women, Porn Studies, 7:3, 279-290, DOI: 10.1080/23268743.2020.1726204

-

In a recent post @dragonsandphoenix mentioned ‘Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China’ by Wu Cuncun. I haven't read it but, it sure looks interesting.

-

Update! Sorry, it is unsorted.

Kazumi Nagaike - Perverse Sexualities, Perversive Desires: Representations of Female Fantasies and "Yaoi Manga" as Pornography Directed at Women [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42771904]

Akiko Mizoguchi - Male-Male Romance by and for Women in Japan: A History and the Subgenres of "Yaoi" Fictions [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42771903]

Mark J. McLelland - Japan’s Original Gay Boom [https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/145]

McLelland, Mark J., Salarymen Doing Queer: Gay Men and the Heterosexual Public Sphere in Japan 2005. https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/156

McLelland, Mark J., Salarymen Doing Queer: Gay Men and the Heterosexual Public Sphere in Japan 2005. https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/156

McLelland, Mark J., Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World 2003. https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/152

Himanshi Singh and Pradeep Kumar - Hijra : An Understanding https://doi.org/10.32381/JPR.2020.15.01.6

Bithika Mondal , Sudeshna Das , Deepshikha Ray , and Debanjan Banerjee - “Their Untold Stories…”: Lived Experiences of Being a Transgender (Hijra), A Qualitative Study From India [DOI: 10.1177/2631831820936924]

Edited by Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker - Boys Love Manga and Beyond

Thomas Baudinette - Japanese gay men’s attitudes towards ‘gay manga’ and the problem of genre - doi: 10.1386/eapc.3.1. 59_1

Jungmin Kwon – Straight Korean Female Fans and Their Gay Fantasies

Narupon Duangwises and Peter A. Jackson - Effeminacy and Masculinity in Thai Gay Culture: Language, Contextuality and the Enactment of Gender Plurality - https://so06.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/wjss

Kristine Michelle L. Santos (2020): The bitches of Boys Love comics: the pornographic response of Japan’s rotten women, https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2020.1726204

Yanrui Xu & Ling Yang (2013) Forbidden love: incest, generational conflict, and the erotics of power in Chinese BL fiction - https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2013.771378

Divya Garg & Xiaofei Yang (14 Feb 2024): Beyond a queer utopia: interrogating misogyny in transnational boys love media https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2024.2314186

Bret Hinsch – Passions of the Cut Sleeve

Kristine Michelle L. Santos (2020): Queer Affective Literacies: Examining “Rotten” Women’s Literacies in Japan - https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2020.1825506

Tomoko Aoyama - BL (Boys’ Love) Literacy: Subversion, Resuscitation, and Transformation of the (Father’s) Text - DOI: 10.1353/jwj.2013.0001

Jungmin Kwon - The past, present, and future of Boys Love (BL) cultures in East Asia [Transnational Convergence of East Asian Pop Culture - Edited by Seok-Kyeong Hong and Dal Yong Jin]

Sulaiman TK 2017 - Sexuality Landscape of Modern Kerala: A Discourse on Male Social Gathering among Malabar Muslim Men

Filippo Osella - Malabar Secrets: South Indian Muslim Men's (Homo)sociality across the Indian Ocean - http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/casr20

Caroline and Filippo Osella - Men and Masculinities in South India

Lothar Filip Rudorfer (2023) - Homosexuality and Bara Manga in Japan – Representation of the Psychological State of Mind of the Contemporary LGBT+ Plus Size Men in Japan

Chapter 5 (Exploring Yaoi Fans’ Online Practices in an Online Community by Simon Turner) and Chapter 6 (An Evaluation of Physicality in the Bara Manga of Bádi Magazine by Thomas Baudinette) of Manga Vision – edited by Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou and Cathy Sell

Celia Rose Langford (2019) - Queered Time on the Page: The Micro-level Revolution of the Bishōnen in 21st Century Yaoi Manga

Febriani Sihombing - On The Iconic Difference between Couple Characters in Boys Love Manga – 2011

William S. Armour (2010) Representations of the Masculine in Tagame Gengoroh's Ero SM Manga - https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2010.527922

Zhang Yiyuan - Repressed Sexuality — Disguised Masculinity in Chinese Danmei Adapted Series – 2023

Poramate Parnpiamkiat - Expectation of Fans Towards Thai Boys’ Love Celebrity Couples (2019)

Poowin Bunyavejchewin, Kornphanat Tungkeunkunt, Porntep Kamonpetch, Ketsarin Sirichuanjun & Natthanont Sukthungthong (2024) Socio-demographics, lifestyles, and consumption frequency of Thai ‘Boys Love’ series content: Initial evidence from Thailand https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2307697

Charlie Yi Zhang & Adam K. Dedman (2021) Hyperreal homoerotic love in a monarchized military conjuncture: a situated view of the Thai Boys’ Love industry https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.1959370

Xi Tian - Homosexualizing “Boys Love” in China DOI 10.1215/25783491-8163817

Aiqing Wang - Nonnormative Masculinity In Danmei Literature: ‘Maiden Seme’ And Sajiao https://doi.org/10.17572/mj2021.1.106123

Travis S. K. Kong - Sexuality and the rise of China : the post-1990s gay generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China (2023)

Junqi Zhang - The Reception of Thai Boys Love Series in China: Consumption, Imagination, and Friction (2021)

Joanna Elfving-Hwang - Not So Soft After All: Kkonminam Masculinities in Contemporary South Korean Popular Culture (2011)

Dredge Byung’chu Kang-Nguyen - The Softening of Butches The Adoption of Korean "Soft" Masculinity among Thai Toms http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctv7r429w.7

Ying-Chao Ka - The coloniality of queer theory: The effects of “homonormativity” on transnational Taiwan’s path to equality https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607211047518

Sandeep Bakshi. On Decolonising Queerness with Dr Sandeep Bakshi. 2023 https://hal.science/hal-04183158

Adam Chen-Dedman - Tongzhi Sovereignty: Taiwan’s lgbt Rights Movement and the Misplaced Critique of Homonationalism [ doi: 10.1163/24688800-20221267 ]

[lizardsfromspace]

The problem with discussing the impact of reality TV is that there were two booms of reality TV that were very different, and people conflate them

The first one from 1999 to the mid-2000s was mainly reality-competition shows, and mainly on broadcast networks. This was the one networks did as a ploy to replace writers with cheaper content. This wave was also dying or dead by the end of the 2000s. The biggest hits survived, but it became harder to launch new reality-competition shows, and all the smaller shows and specials that clogged up the schedule (and some famous ones, like Fear Factor) went extinct, a victim of oversaturation - something foreshadowed by the show that kicked off the boom, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, going from hottest thing in TV to cancelled as it expanded to five nights a week. Like, if you look them up, most of the big reality-competition shows now either started during these boom years, or are spin-offs of one that did (like the Gordon Ramsay shows all springing from Hell's Kitchen). The network's dream/the industry's fear of reality replacing scripted content never came to pass

It's actually a huge commitment to launch a new "the viewers at home vote!" reality show, since you have to assign a untested show two hours on one night for the live show and one hour on the next for the results show, and throughout the 2010s networks would look for ways to ditch the results show. In some countries you could do voting live (British reality shows do due to having just one timezone), but you can't in the US due to episodes airing on a delay on the West Coast

I don't think you even can do a show of American Idol's level anymore, since it thrived from a brief period of overlap: where phones & internet were common, but we still had some kind of a monoculture. My proof of this is that there's a new season of American Idol airing right now, in April 2023. Did you know it was still on? I didn't. Do you know who won last year? I'm not sure I could name a winner or even contestant since the Bush years. I never watched it, but everyone knew who won it in its early years, since it had a saturation you just can't get anymore, except with sports. Hell, at its peak everyone knew the names of people who didn't get past the auditions. This is not a growth industry, it is one crystalized around a few shambling forever-hits, and that one show where famous people sing in animal masks

The second boom is the one that took off around the time of the strike, which was made up of "personality" based reality shows. These were most common on basic cable channels, and crucially, basic cable channels that didn't really have scripted content. Keeping Up with the Kardashians didn't displace anything, because E! was a celebrity gossip channel that was all-reality from the beginning. The fears around this kind of reality show were more intangible, that Jersey Shore or the Kardashians were a kind of cultural downfall, though they weren't in any sense a new evil but just the latest manifestation of tabloid culture. In past generations the type of person to keep up with the Kardashians would've religiously bought the National Enquirer, and far before that they would've kept up with the society pages.

Anyway people act as if these two booms were the same when they were very different and treat the first one as if it's ongoing and not very firmly dead

[lostdrarryfics]

THE BIG FIND 2023: Day 1

The Big Find is a 10-day long Drarry fic-finding marathon to celebrate the blog’s anniversary. Below is the Day 1 compilation of lost fics, both old and new, that we’ve been unable to find. Our aim is to get as much attention to these lost fics as possible, to help people finally find their missing fics! Anyone can participate by reblogging, reading through each list, providing additional fic details, and informing us the title, author, or link of a fic, and their respective number in the comment section. Happy finding!

1.1 It’s a fic where after Draco is sentenced to live in muggle world and Draco first works in a cofee shop and then in a pharmaceutical company formed by a witch. then on a full moon day he suddenly turns into a werewolf and then with bill helps him adjust, and then he becomes potions professor meanwhile Harry adopts teddy and becomes defence professor and Harry magic goes haywire

1.2 it has Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Harry but the main scene is basically just Draco and Harry in the Room of Requirement. Premise is that Harry had been using magic to glamour himself to cover up the signs or the Dursley’s abuse FOREVER so no one has actually seen what he looks like. Somehow I think Ron and Hermione convince Harry to let someone in so he decides to show Draco who he’s dating what he actually looks like and Draco is so shocked/aghast Harry thinks he’s disgusted and one of them (though i don’t remember who) runs away back to the dorm and Harry is deeply upset. I believe it’s relatively short (2-10k?) and i feel like it’s 2-3 chapters or parts but could be wrong. It’s probably AO3 but slight possibility it was FFN (HIGHLY unlikely tho). If it is AO3 then unfortunately it’s not tagged for any of the things i listed.

1.3 Harry and Draco were out with Teddy, and they ran into Neville who questioned Harry about Draco and their relationship. I believe it was winter. There’s another scene that I can remember and I don’t know if I’m conflating two different fics but there’s a scene where Harry and Draco are shopping in muggle London and they’re looking at weird shirts and they run into Vernon who makes some homophobic slurs.

FOUND! 1.4 I’m looking for a fic that was on ao3. Draco is some sort of an artist, not sure if professionally or simply something he pursues as a hobby for his healing. Writer or painter maybe. He has a mentor who tells him to go a retreat by the seaside in a little hotel which he does and he runs into Harry by accident. Harry is overall happy and open to him, but Draco has a lot of anger towards him I think. They start a dom/sub relationship, Draco being the dom, taking pleasure out of humiliating Harry. Towards the end there’s a scene where he makes Harry suck off a stranger in a bars bathroom or maybe the stranger sucks Harry off while Draco watches. But I think this is a where Harry has enough because ultimately he only wants Draco. It’s a happy end if I remember well.

1.5 i read this fic on ao3 it was unfinished and a muggle au. harry works at an office (I think) where he is the boss and he meets Draco at a bar. Jily is still dead so Halloween is hard for him. He also dated Cedric I think and Cedric died. Draco helps bartend with Theo, and Draco is dressed like a cat cause of Halloween. Draco then gets assaulted and harry punches the guy. after that they hangout in Harry’s car.

1.6 Draco and Harry had a one night stand (I think?) and Draco gets pregnant, he doesn’t tell Harry and then leaves the baby with him once it’s born, Harry didn’t know that he is the father but keeps the baby. Said baby gets sick and the treatment involves the father so he publishes about it in the Prophet and ask the baby’s dad to please show up. Draco does and had some test done, they start the treatment and Harry asks him to stay.

FOUND! 1.7 been looking for this fic for a long time. i think draco is some sort of healer in the fic and harry always come to him injured and he helps patch him up also they’re close friends and by the end of the fic they go to ginny’s quidditch match and the gang helps them realise they have feeling for each other?

1.8 I believe it was on AO3 but I could be wrong, I think it was a number of fics in a series but it could have been chapters but I’m fairly sure it was complete. It was set post-war, Harry had become an Auror and was apparating home from an alley while buzzed. There was a line about how the whores don’t hit on him anymore because he never takes them home? He hears a weird noise and his magic automatically sobers him up. The noise is Draco, who got kicked out by parents and got roofied. Harry rescues him, I think Draco passes out? and then Harry is annoyed because his buzz is gone and he has to deal with this. The second fic (or chapter) opens from Draco’s POV. He’s looking around the bedroom he’s in and he figures out it’s the old Black house because of the furniture and that Harry must have rescued him but taken him home instead of the hospital. He decides to seduce Harry and he’s able to conjure like a mirror and brush? and there’s a line about how this is the only spell he’s able to do wordlessly/wandlessly? I think the POV then switches to Harry and there’s a line about how Draco has managed to get like a single ray of light from the curtains to fall on him perfectly. Harry is aware he’s being seduced but he’s into it. Then I think the next chapter has Harry confronting the Malfoy parents about how they’re going to get married and they’re not going to hyphenate names, Draco is going to take his last name. The final fic is maybe from Lucius pov (or narcissa?) Draco threw Harry a really big birthday party and reveals he’s pregnant which causes Lucius to faint? And there’s a line about how the baby has brought both Harry and Lucius to their knees.

FOUND! 1.9 harry tells draco that he wants to wait until theyre eight years into their relationship to get married so that hed have spent more time loving him than hating him before they tie the knot

1.10 auror fic where Draco and Harry have to work together to arrest some child abuser and learn about each other’s past. I don’t remember if they were in relationships or it was drarry but the focus was the work in the auror force and their building relationship.

1.11 major plot point is ginny and Molly Weasley being behind some sort of plot and eventually are imprisoned. I know Ron is an ass for much of the fic, hermione helps solve a case or problem with Harry and involves draco. Not a lot much else I recall fic is not The Haunting of Harry Potter by Alexandria_ofCiro

1.12 was either 1 or 2 chapters, it was on ffnet. Set in the eighth year. The plot is somewhat similar to the show/manga “boys over flowers”. Also Draco was being bullied due to receiving a howler (I think, sorry it’s been a long time since I’ve read it) Neville has an unrequited crush on Draco and they are friends.

1.13 takes place in the eighth year but some of it also takes place after the war but before the eighth year. Draco receives an inheritance from a high ranking Veela who died which made him a Veela. Most of what I remember takes place before he goes back to hogwarts and is basically him learning how to be a Veela and stuff

FOUND! 1.14 Draco cursing his family name (Malfoy) because he wants to feel pain each time someone says it to it. So i think the fic starts with Draco working as a cafe barista in the human world and harry walks into the shop and calls him Malfoy, so the curse is kinda unlocked and Draco gets sick so he has to stay under surveillance in Harry’s house