#direct quote from the carrd

[artemisaed]

"Parethnicity is bad it's white people trying to invade poc spaces!!"

1, Vi do not care what you think is "racist", you are openly white

2, that is not what the term is dumbass

3, go outside please

[sneakerdoodle]

Hey all! I have compiled a small resource on the pressure targets identified by the BDS Movement

I have seen many calls for boycott of organic and organized consumer boycott targets (keep it up ✊🏻), but not a lot of conversation about what "pressure" might look like when it comes to pressure targets.

This carrd quotes the BDS Movement's official directions ("boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure") and compiles some fairly easy ways to follow them for folks like me, who are socially & geographically isolated and may struggle with finding accessible forms of engagement. As such, social media pressure is the main focus. The idea is as follows:

The background information blurb ("What you should know") helps you learn the brief timeline & details of the company's involvement and their response to public pressure so far;

The "Suggested actions" section introduces you to any existing campaigns or calls to action endorsed by the BDS, as well as direct links to the companies' socials, contact forms, and so on;

You are now enabled to publicly shame Google for their complicity in genocide and cite their failure to properly engage with their protesting employees, for example

I hope to receive some input directly from the BDS Movement organizers (should they have enough time and resource to entertain my inquiry), but as of now, this is based on my own interpretation of their guidelines. I welcome any and all feedback on what should be added, altered or removed. You may reach out right here on tumblr or via the email address listed on the carrd.

Please do share this around if this feels worthwhile, and I hope some may find this compilation helpful

[19catsncounting]

I Got Really Into Anti/Proship Discourse And Read +30 Academic Studies - My Findings

(It’s a Yapfest but the whole post is a very long essay and study on morality and fiction and children’s safety and rape culture with a fuckton of freely accessible academic articles and resources on the subject, and I want to talk to other people about it. For a shorter abstract with all the articles and more easily ignored yapping, see my shiny new Carrd:)

It’s been a little shocking lately to have certain discussions with some parts of fandom. I spoke about shipping/harassment and how that contributes to the death of fandom on TikTok assuming that younger folks are just really, really intense about preventing sexual violence, but the more I saw the words “morally wrong” and “disgusting” and “addiction,” the more I thought about this guy-

That’s Jerry Falwell, and I fucking hate this dead guy. You see, Jerry Falwell was a preacher who hated porn, feminism, and homosexuality. And I'm seeing his rhetoric and reworked quotes a lot.

Jerry would say stuff like:

“Pornography hurts anyone who reads it - garbage in, garbage out.”

“Someone must not be afraid to say ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America!”

Jerry wanted people to believe that it’s possible to see so much sexual content that it warps your sexuality, because he was gay and wanted to think that was due to thinking about gay sex too much. Jerry did not have a lot of evidence to prove that homosexuality was harmful, so he relied heavily on how “morally distasteful” it seemed to be to suburban Americans.

I spent the majority of my teen years arguing against Jerry’s rhetoric for the right to live as a lesbian online, and I never thought I’d see morality rhetoric in people I’m otherwise very politically aligned with. And I definitely never thought fandom of all things, in all its beautiful subversive glory, would seriously start advocating for censorship, anti-porn, and to consume fanwork with moral purity.

So, I’d like to have a deeper discussion on it, both here on Tumblr and on TikTok, but that does mean checking a few things at the door:

Personal feelings decide your personal life. What you feel is valid for you, not anyone else.

In general, things that do not cause direct and undeniable harm should not be broadly prohibited just because they’re weird or distasteful to the majority of folks. Ex. Loitering does not cause harm and is a tool of systemic oppression.

The discussion of “fictional CSEM” is the most inflammatory fork of this and it is often used to derail these kinds of conversations. This is all I will say on it - the legal status of explicit visual depictions of minors is muddy. In the US, there is just one dude in Utah who pled guilty for possessing explicit lolicon he bought by mail order without also possessing CSEM with real children, and explicit writing about fictional minors has been settled as protected free speech. Dedicated organizations from the NCMEC to Chris Hansen have asked that fictional content is not reported as CSAM as it is not actionable and clogs up finite resources. 90% of NCMEC reports were not actionable last year. There are studies suggesting that virtual CSEM or other non-victim alternatives could reduce actual child harm, but there is need for further research.

We’re all in agreement that untagged NSFW is not cool, and kids deserve kid-only sections of the internet. People who are triggered by or dislike problematic content deserve to be able to not see it. 👍

 (I’ve seen the argument that blocking tags/people should not be required - sorry, PTSD still requires that you manage your triggers, up to and including swearing off platforms just as I have sworn off bars/soap brands/etc to avoid my triggers.)

I have found a lot of accessible and free articles and studies that I will link throughout so that we can discuss the fact-based reasoning, in an effort to have a civil conversation.

(Also because we are not flat earthers, we are Fandom, and if we’re going to be annoying little shitheels in an “Um Actually” contest, we’re going to have the sources to back it up.)

Minors and Explicit Material

I’m not supporting minors engaging with explicit material. I have such little interest in the subject that I’m not even going to bring in articles, but you can feel free to. I personally engaged with explicit material as a preteen of my own free will and did not find it to be harmful, and the majority of people throughout human history have been exposed to explicit material at an early age with varying degrees of harm. There are undeniable legal and harm-driven differences between a 12 year old girl looking at Hustler on her own, a 14 year old boy being sent nudes from a grown woman, and a 6 year old viewing PornHub. (And I think the guardians of that 6 year old should be charged with grooming just like the woman, tbh.)

Personal Disclaimer

I’m an adult survivor of CSA and incest. I’m a happily married adult. I don’t personally like lolicon/shotacon/kodocon. I don’t like kids. I don’t like teens. I’m personally not attracted to underage fictional characters. I have family, the idea of fucking any of them makes me want to throw up and die, so I don’t write or read RPF of my family.

I am really, really fucking intense about preventing sexual violence, supporting survivors, and fandom, which is where this all comes from.

I read and love problematic fiction - my favorites are ASOIAF, Lolita, and VC Andrews. The most “problematic” thing I’ve personally written are Lucifer/Michael fics from Supernatural back in 2012. They are “brothers” in CW Christ, not blood. They do not have any blood.

Gen Z and Online Grooming

In 2002, a survey of 1500 minors from 10-17 found that 4% had been solicited for sexual purposes by an adult online.

In 2023, that number increased to 20%.

While the linked 2023 Thorn report suggests that the vast majority of these inappropriate interactions happened on platforms that allow for interpersonal communication, which by and large minors were greatly discouraged from and had less access to in the early 2000’s, a trauma-informed approach does not allow for blame to fall on the children. The guardians of those children have monumentally failed to restrict and educate before giving children the means to access those platforms.

It is my uncited but personal opinion that the increased rate of grooming, as well as an increased interest in combating rape culture, has led to well-intentioned individuals to become digital vigilantes attacking those who they hold responsible for their traumatic experiences in a search for catharsis and justice denied for themselves as well as a desire to make the internet safer for other children, whom they are increasingly aware are entering online spaces unsupervised at distressingly young ages.

Is harassment and bullying bad for perpetrators of it?

Before we get into how ship-related hate campaigns do not affect predation or combat rape culture, we should acknowledge that it’s actually pretty harmful for the people who cyberbully. Not just in the legal/social consequences, but people who participate in cyberbullying and cyberhate campaigns have higher rates of depression, estrangement from their parents, self-effacing habits, social anxiety, lower empathy, and so forth.

One study suggests that the treatment and prohibitive for cyberbullying, which contributes to a culture of cyberhate and a lower likelihood to report or confront other incidents of harassment or toxicity online, can be combatted with media competency to increase empathy along with other important life skills.

Some Common Pro-Censorship Myths

“Pornography is Addictive/Consumption of Pornography Leads to Increasingly Hardcore Imagery And Ultimately Real-World Violence” - The American Psychological Association does not recognize Porn Addiction as real and the DSM-5 does not classify it as an addiction. Additionally, many methods used in articles claiming that porn is addictive or causes users to seek out more hardcore material were flawed or biased. There is actually some evidence that compulsive porn use, the closest you can get to a porn addiction diagnosis, is associated with shame and the user’s belief that pornography is morally wrong, which sex-negative attitudes encourage.

“Jaws caused shark culling” - That's unfortunately a simplification that ignores a LOT of surrounding context. WW2’s modern naval battles with an increase of ship sinkings and thus contact with sharks prompted the invention and use of shark repellant by aviators and sailors in the 1940’s. The most deadly and famous shark attack of all time was the USS Indianapolis sinking in 1945, which led to 12-150 deaths. The 1974 book Jaws by Peter Benchley, which was the entire basis of the movie, was inspired by One Fucking Dude who started shark hunting tours and overall seemed to have a really immaculate vibe. The interstate highways that finished in the 1950’s increased beach tourism in the 60’s and onwards, inspiring the American surf culture, further increasing the cultural desire to purge sharks for the new swath of beachgoers and their fondness for using surfboards which make them look like seals to sharks. Additionally, 1975’s Jaws inspired a huge desire for education about sharks, and the relationship between problematic media and education will be the core of this yapperoni pizza.

“The Slendermen Killings/Other Fiction Inspired Crimes” - The ACLU states that “There is no evidence that fiction has ever driven a sane person to violence.” Inspired crimes are indeed no less tragic, and thankfully rare, but people who suffer from inability to discern reality and fiction do not necessarily need fiction to commit violence. The “Son of Sam” murder spree was not inspired by a book or movie, but instead Berkowitz’ auditory hallucinations.

“Violent videogames DO cause violence” - After a great deal of funding and study, the American Psychological Association has concluded that teens and younger may have increased feelings of aggression and not necessarily physically violent outbursts as a direct effect, but older teens and young adults do not encounter statistically meaningful rates of aggression.

“Your brain can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality” - Factually incorrect. Children as young as 5 years old can tell the difference, and they can even be more suspicious about “facts” that come from sources they know also host fiction, such as TV shows.

“This stuff shouldn’t be online because it can be used to groom a child” - While I could not find specific statistics on how often pornography is used to desensitize child victims, nor how often that is specifically used in online grooming, and especially not how much of that pornography is made from fictional characters - out of a mixed group of convicted offenders with adult and child victims, 55% of offenders used pornography to manipulate their victim. I would never refute that explicit fanart or fanfic could be used to desensitize a child, but that is by far not the only tool (asking about sexual experiences/identity, making jokes, etc is extremely common grooming behavior), and there is no evidence to suggest that it is used to a statistically significant degree. In my own anecdotal experience, normal vanilla legal pornography is used with far greater prevalence, and there isn’t a similar movement to shame its production for that possibility. Nor should the creators of any material, pornographic or otherwise, share blame in the actions of a predator.

The Fiction Affects Reality Carrd

(No hate to the person who made it, in fact I give props to them for trying to find unbiased sources, I just want to point out that their interpretations of their articles are kinda flawed and one of their studies is a kind of a perfect example on small and culturally biased samples.)

Reading Fiction Impacts Aggressive Behavior - (I cannot access the full study but this article is the primary source used in the Carrd and it goes into detail) - A study showed that 67 university students were more annoyed with a loud buzzer after reading a short story about a physical fight between roommates compared to a story with nonviolent revenge. However, this study was conducted at Brigham Young University, the same campus where we got a whole video series of hot ethical takes like “I’d rather shoot a kitten than drink coffee,” so uh. Yeah. Kind of a prime example on why it’s important to have large and culturally varied sampling. (Another BYU study with 137 BYU students being odd about moral ambiguity in fiction, just because I’m starting to add Dr. Sarah M. Coyne to my list of “Sarah’s That I Dislike.”)

Your Brain on Fiction - a NYT article that describes Theory of the Mind and how fMRIs captured how readers’ minds would light up centers of muscle control when reading sentences like “Peter kicked.” The quote “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated” is speaking of motor functions. Emotional centers of the brain were not included in the study.

How Fiction Changes Your World - a Boston Globe article that actually describes how people who read more fiction are more empathetic and tend to believe in a just world. It does not state that the empathy a reader feels for fictional characters extends to corrupting their moral compass. In fact, there’s such a thing as a “fictive license” to explore taboo themes more thoroughly because it is not real - 123 participants were interviewed after watching two actors play the part of detective and murderer being interviewed, and participants who were told it was fake had more varied and inquisitive responses.

The Social Impact of Books - Actually reuses the previous study about the just world, so point remains. Empathy is understanding, not mirroring.

Is Problematic Fiction Good for Survivors of Trauma?

It absolutely depends on the individual.

Writing expressively about traumatic experiences has been shown to be effective to reduce depression, or more effective in reducing dysphoria and anxiety than talking to fellow survivors, and Written Exposure Therapy is broadly prescribed to survivors of trauma, with one study centering on car crash survivors finding that WET resolved their PTSD symptoms and continued to be effective after a year.

In this study, which sadly is not available online but it is too important to leave out completely, survivors of CSA were given fictional novels about CSA and in closely reading and analyzing those stories, were able to understand their own experiences and were indeed drawn to write about their own experiences as well.

Engaging in problematic fiction, like all fiction, allows for consent as well as control. If at any point a survivor does not feel in control or wishes to stop, they can at that instant. They can even rewrite their narratives and take control of their story in fictionalizing and changing the account. They can even try to understand what their abuser felt through fiction, which is helpful considering that the vast majority of survivors had a relationship that had been positive and even loving with their abusers at times.

Is Problematic Fiction Good for Everyone Else?

It again depends on the individual.

Antis might be a little right that most people don't want to read problematic stories. In a study exploring whether fiction can corrode morals, 83% of study participants stated that they would prefer not to read a short story justifying baby murder if they had the choice, even if that exploration isn’t inherently harmful.

This very small sample study of 13 participants discussed how young women interpreted sexual themes in writing, including explicit fanfiction, and how that was beneficial and informative to explore sexual desire and examine healthy and unhealthy relationships in a safe and controlled environment.

This meta-analysis further discusses how problematic and sexual themes in YA literature are useful to illustrate what sexual violence looks like, and begin educational conversations through those depictions to break down harmful myths such as “if she didn’t scream, she wanted it.”

Empowered by the “Fictive License” previously cited, problematic fiction can be beneficial for anyone who desires and is capable of consuming and analyzing it.

This study analyzing abusive aspects of three films - Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and 50 Shades of Gray - concluded that these abusive themes should be discussed to increase recognition and awareness, not censored based on those problematic themes.

This study of 53 women were asked to read different versions of fictional intimate partner violence flags, or “toxic behavior” like surveillance, control, etc. In every version of the story, whether the female or male had those behaviors either courting or committed, the women recognized the behavior as wrong.

Another study that reading allows for the moral laboratory to explore morality in fiction without decisive impact to corroding moral permissibility.

Is There Ever Any Point Where Fictional Interests Definitively Speak On Someone’s Morality?

In short - not really. Loving Jason Vorhees does not put you at risk of murdering campers as long as you know he’s not real. Writing Wincest does not mean you look forward to family reunions, as long as you know incest isn’t okay in the real world. The real world, where real people are harmed, is where you find the measure of someone’s character.

This Psychology Today article is the best source I could find for quotes from a fantastic book ‘Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies’ by Brett Kahr regarding taboo sexual fantasies and how they are not only common, but not inherently harmful.

There are people who enjoy problematic media in an entirely nonsexual sense, of course. I myself don’t get off on problematic media - I think it’s just interesting to explore different experiences, and I think that can be revolutionary.

Additionally, fantasies in general have almost always been in the vein of “things you don’t want to really happen in reality.” In a study of 351 asexuals, more than half reported that they fantasize about having sex, but that doesn’t mean that they actually want to. You can fantasize about dating Billie Eilish - it doesn’t mean that you’d be happy dealing with celebrity culture.

(I personally fantasize about the internet being just for adults, but in practice I think that would be incredibly harmful and isolating for at-risk youth and LGBTQ teens) Fantasies always pluck out only the bits of reality that you want to engage with.

If You Get Off On Fictional Kids, You’re Attracted to Something About Them Being Kids

Not inherently, surprisingly. Wearing a schoolgirl uniform is a pretty common roleplay, and it’s not meant to “fool” the participants into thinking they’re indulging in pedophilia. There’s a wealth of emotional and sexual nuance in that specific kink - innocence and virginity play, tilted power dynamics in ‘scolding’ the uniform wearer for dress code violations, even the concept of a sexually provocative “teenager” can be played with without shame, because the world of fetish and fantasy is separated from condonable actions for the vast, vast majority of adults. (The only study I could find on this is this small study of 100 white guys found on Facebook, which itself states it is not definitive, found that while there might be correlation between attraction to children and interest in schoolgirl uniforms, there is no proof of causation. AKA, the rectangular pedophile might indeed like square schoolgirl uniforms, but not everyone - in fact, the majority at nearly 60% in this very survey - that likes square schoolgirl uniforms is a rectangular pedophile.)

Even sexual age play between adults is not indicative of pedophilia because it exists in a setting between two adults who fully understand that the mechanics are completely fake, allowing the power dynamics that would be abusive between an adult and child to be ethically explored.

I don’t have an official-looking study to cite, but I have asked people who like content about underage fictional characters why they do so. Overwhelmingly, a lot of the ones who like underage age gaps like the fantasy of an older and more experienced character taking a younger one under their wing, to have the opportunity to commit violent and blatantly objectifying harm and yet try to create what inevitably does not truly pass as consent, but seems near enough to the characters. Some think that the characters themselves have an interesting chemistry. Some read underage fic and still imagine the characters as adults. Some like to explore the feelings of shame that the older character must feel and how they mentally compartmentalize to go forward with the relationship, and how the younger character found themself in that vulnerable position - which is exploring a harmful situation through fiction to understand how it could play out in real life.

People who like fictional incest like exploring the shameful components of that taboo relationship - and I have seen a lot of works that compare how bad incest could be to other harms, like the Gravecest route in a game with parental cannibalism. And then there are folks who like analyzing the codependency of having one person fulfill every social need - family, friend, lover, AKA Wincest.

What makes a predator if it’s not just sexual attraction?

90% of CSA survivors know their abuser, discrediting the still-entirely-too-popular Stranger Danger myth. And shockingly, only 50% of abusers are pedophiles.

That means 50% of child molesters do not have sexual interest in children because they are children, but they victimized children because they are more accessible in lieu of adult partners, with increased rates of incest.

While I could not find a specific study on the relation between dehumanization/objectification of child victims and child molesters (and if you find one, please send it to me!), this study speaks on dehumanization as a precursor to adult sexual violence.

This study, conducted on convicted child molesters in prison, showed that child molesters tend to fantasize about children while in a negative mood, further contributing to the theory that child victims are dehumanized prior to abuse.

This very small sample study found that in a mixed sample of internet only/contact crime/mixed offenders, offenders who had contact with children had lower rates of fantasizing about children.

In short, half the time a child predator is someone who wants to offend against a child regardless of attraction to the fact they are a child.

Resources To Recognize Grooming/Abuse Victims/Predators

I would absolutely be remiss to not share my collection of resources to help detect signs of abuse/grooming as well as warning signs of a predator who may be targeting elders/women/teens/children:

Darkness 2 Light is a fantastic resource overall, this page details stages and signs of grooming.

RAINN personally helped me through my PTSD journey, and this article detailing the signs of sexual trauma in teenagers is thorough and non-judgemental

Signs of abuse as well as warning signs of predation that does not use gendered language nor play into the Stranger Danger myth.

Education, not Censorship

I think a lot of the energy against taboo content among young people still has a lot to do with the desire to end rape culture. The tools that we Millennial Tumblrinas gave you Gen Z kids were snatches of leftist theory, deplatforming, and voting with your dollar, so it’s reasonable to think that removing taboo content like pedophilia, incest, rape fights rape culture.

It doesn’t.

Rape culture is fought by education. Comprehensive sex education, education about consent. Talking about what consent looks like, what sex can look like, what rape can look like.

There should be more taboo content to talk about these things, to show all the shades it can look like. From a violent noncon to fics that aren’t even tagged as dubcon yet still are in shades that are hard to suss out, we should talk about it.

A Non-Empirical Example Of Good Media Analysis and Education to Combat Rape Culture

Let’s use the example of Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen’s relationship in House of the Dragon. Canonically, in both the book and the show, they have a romantic relationship that appears for the most part to be positive (the show being more contentious but I dedicated an aside to Sarah Hess and our beef at the bottom of my Carrd, but feel free to ask how I feel about writing producers with any variation of the name ‘Sarah’) despite an age gap, a sexual relationship that began while Rhaenyra was a minor, and incest - the problematic hat trick if you will.

I have seen anti-Daemyra shippers condemn Daemyra shippers for “Condoning grooming, age gaps, pedophilia, and incest.” Which is not just a broad, inaccurate, and harmful statement, it’s not at all constructive or educational analysis.

It would actually be beneficial to say “Daemon is grooming Rhaenyra as a teenager with gifts, devoted attention that takes advantage of her isolation and vulnerability, frequent nonsexual touches, the extreme desensitization to sexuality in the brothel visit,” etc etc. And even so, it is not useful to say that people cannot still ship the relationship and acknowledge those aspects. They might want to further explore the issues of consent in their dynamic in fiction, they may want to strip away some of them with narrative reimagining. Some might want to ignore the taboos completely and indulge in the fantasy entirely, and some might find the actors hot as hell - AKA, anyone who watches the show.

It’s honestly a little similar to me in how Jerry Falwell would tell his followers not to watch or read or take in any media that dealt with homosexuality unless it was condemning it - even Will & Grace was on Jerry’s shitlist. And so, Jerry’s followers missed out on a lot of media that could have educated them about queerness, could have humanized queer people for them - and that did not make queers go away. Just like ignoring or shutting out media about incest, rape, and other forms of sexual violence doesn’t make those things go away - it just tends to make you less informed, and little less capable of empathy towards people affected by those subjects.

So let’s stop shaming those that ship a complicated dynamic - you get less fanworks exploring those taboos, and less of a discussion overall. You shut down the morality lab of fiction, and to be honest, it’s wet sock behavior.

Some FanFiction Specific Studies

How dubcon fanfiction can flesh out the intricacies and messiness of realistic consent

A review of darkfic written about Harry Potter in 2005 (which, I will personally attest has never been outdone in how profoundly taboo those works were)

Interviews with 11 Self Insert writers who wrote on themes of rape, abuse, control, yandere, etc, and how that was beneficial to some who had experienced sexual violence themselves

Conclusion:

H…holy shit, you actually read all of that?? Congrats dude! That is a lot of time and brain power to dedicate to any one thing!

By the way, I am not really gifted at writing articles or any of that junk, and I tried to make my hyperlexic ass a little more accessible instead of bringing out all the $5 words. I am literally just an autistic who took a couple technical writing classes over a decade ago and really wanted to sort out my thoughts and try to have a platform for discussion. Also, I am really fucking bad at math. I failed two different college level statistics classes twice each. Gun to my head, I could not tell you what a standard deviation is, which is why I worked entirely with the percentages.

And I do want to have a discussion! I would in fact like to not report anyone for sending me gore or death threats or any of that stuff! I don’t think everyone will agree with me, in fact I’m certain that you could find studies that contradict some of mine, and I’d love to discuss them!

I’m sure it will still be tempting to throw around accusations of pedophilia because sometimes, confronting your previously held beliefs is incredibly uncomfortable. If you could not do that, that would be great? I don’t like being compared to someone who profoundly abused me just because I have a different opinion on how to combat rape culture and empower survivors. If you can do that, I’ll do my absolute best to be cheerful and welcoming and respectful as well. 😁

PS - I’m also not really going to be phased if you call me weird or cringe - I am. Always have been. Cringe, weirdness, and autism have made me do and capable of doing some fantastically neat and impressive stuff. But if you try to say something like “proshippers are too yucky and weird to be in fandom” - I’m going to have to refer you to your similarity to Kate Sanders of Lizzy McGuire fame, you “prEpz >:(“ - [My Immortal, legendary author unknown]

[mediumkravitz]

I noticed in your carrd about the bi vs. pan debate that you reference the American Institute of Bisexuality and I thought you might want to know that they are behind the publication Queer Majority which has published zionist articles, articles arguing sexual orientation labels should only be defined by the "sex" of who you're attracted to, and platforms TERFs and SWERFs. This only recently came to my attention so I don't blame you if you were unaware, just letting you know.

Well that is extraordinarily upsetting, especially with how much influence & reach the Institute has. Thank you very much for informing me.

I revisited the bi.org website (also run by AIB) to see if maybe I had misremembered some of its content, but it seems to have just actively changed. While I don’t have a screenshot of how the site looked in 2020, you’re just gonna have to believe I copy-pasted these quotes directly for this article in that year:

Now they look like this:

Not sure when this shift occurred, but it is certainly alarming.

While I’m unsure I can purge every trace of the AIB from everything I’ve written (as that would, infuriatingly, also mean never touching an article from the Journal of Bisexuality), I have removed all direct mentions of them from my Carrd & the historical quote article.

[desdecourse]

breaking down the "Debunking Sysmeds" carrd (just for kicks 😍) part 1!!

was sent this carrd by a friend and it's been a while since i've interacted with endo logic so here we go! <3 let's break it down section by section because whew girlie is chock full of bonkers misinformation! henceforth, i will be referring to the person who made the carrd as the "creator" and using they/them pronouns, as i do not know their pronouns (please let me know if anyone does!).

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THE "CLAIMS AND REBUTTALS"

if y'all don't stop using 20 different fallacies in your arguments... it'll be all over for you... seriously!

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the first point the creator tries to rebuff is the argument of "DID/OSDD-1 is a trauma disorder." starting off strong, i see! their response is essentially that nowhere in the diagnostic criteria within the DSM-V or ICD-11 does it say that DID/OSDD requires trauma. immediately going to stop you there - it may be to the creator's benefit to read any other page of the DSM. the third sentence on the intro page for trauma-related disorders is:

"Placement of this chapter reflects the close relationship between these diagnoses and disorders in the surrounding chapters on anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, and dissociative disorders"

additionally, had the creator read the ENTIRE DID entry, not just the diagnostic criteria, they would have found this lovely quote, found in the "development and course" section of the DID entry:

Dissociative identity disorder is associated with overwhelming experiences, traumatic events, and/or abuse occurring in childhood.

within this section, the creator also discusses an article written by allen j frances, the person responsible for the changing of MPD to DID, in which he discusses the abundance of false diagnoses of DID following the recognition of it as a disorder after the release of the DSM-IV in 1994. firstly, the creator of the carrd incorrectly stipulates that frances renamed MPD to DID in the DSM-V. secondly, the creator uses frances' criticism of increased DID diagnoses to demonstrate that the diagnostic criteria isn't to be trusted.

what.

so, to reiterate, we should trust the DSM-V when it doesn't emphasize trauma in the diagnoses (false), but we also shouldn't trust the DSM-V because of an article written by someone who had nothing to do with the DSM-V?

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the second point the creator decides to rebut is "Science says Endogenic systems don't exist." now, much of this argument is rooted in a few "studies" the creator has linked, which i will analyze more in a separate section reserved specifically for source analysis. but! one really interesting part of this section is the comparison between endogenics (an internet community and internet term) to "marginalized religions such as Shamanism" which is a direct quote.

something i really need endos on the internet to understand is that you can't compare your just-realized "system" of non-traumatic origins to the spiritual practices of highly religious individuals who have been practicing their religions for decades, engaging in extreme asceticism, and doing really intense internal reflection. and you especially shouldn't throw in words like "marginalized" to your argument. at what point does that become cultural appropriation?

i also find it soooo interesting that the creator refers to the otherkin and alterhuman communities as something that has "existed long before the term DID/MPD/OSDD-1/DDNOS." the first recorded use of "otherkin" was in 1990 in a newsletter from an elf club in kentucky, and it has been predominantly an online community. the concept of DID (MPD at the time) first appeared in the DSM-III in the 1970s.

the creator also refers to endogenic systems as something people "believe" in, which is... questionable in it's own right. it is interesting that they brought this point up in the section in which they are trying to combat the idea that science does not back up endogenic systems, as religious beliefs (with no proof, something that people simply "believe" in) and science (which is backed up by decades of research) aren't exactly comparable.

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the third point rebutted is the statement "You're not a system, you're schizophrenic/psychotic." honestly, not a big issue with this one. i've never heard anyone say this personally, but i can totally see it happening, and it definitely shouldn't be done. no one can really tell you what you're experiencing, so i take no issue with the creator on this one! i don't think this at all supports the existence endogenics, though.

----------------

i don't want to make this too long, so i'm going to write out the remainder of the points on a part 2!

[unprocione]

name : rian!

pronouns :  he/him :)

preference of communication : discord! always discord, i constantly forget tumblr ims exist, and on discord i can remark things as unread, so i don't lose the notification if i can't reply at the time, which helps when i'm burnt out or if my attention span is particularly bad that day.

most active muse :  leon & only leon these days!

experience / how many years :  i've been writing on tumblr since late 2018! it feels like way longer, i started writing on tumblr when red dead redemption 2 was released and i was writing josiah trelawny while the game was actually still under embargo, scrambling to watch every new playthrough episode i could find while the fandom was setting up. i didn't actually play the game myself until it was released on pc in late 2019!

best experience : i had several really good experiences writing atlas/frank fontaine from bioshock in a western cusp-of-the-nineteen-hundreds american heartland verse, going into alot of topics like industrialism at that time, the american labour movement and american union history, strike tactics & the economics of greed. it was inspired alot from a show on the usa network called damnation that got cancelled, i did a ton of historical research and i mostly wrote with red dead redemption ii muses, did alot of worldbuilding with @sharp-teeth-and-wide-grins who is an excellent roleplay partner! i'm working on potentially setting up that verse again but from a different perspective for leon, because i miss it.

rp pet peeves : oh i have alot of opinions but i keep 'em to myself until you give me an opportunity. can't stand people getting cancelled for writing villains as the actual villains they are in canon, or characters generally as more complicated morally, especially when they're referencing content from the actual media and people are losing their minds because they're not the fandom expectation or easy ship material. so many people will have 'mun does not equal muse!!' in their carrds and byfs but will clutch their pearls if you even quote directly from source material, and then harass the fuck out of you, send hate anons, suicide bait, i mean we've all seen it happen or heard about it if it hasn't happened to us directly, definitely so if you're on this site for more than a year, so you know what i mean. i don't like people looking to my writing for moral directives or sifting through all my content to glimpse some kind of agenda, i think that's chronically online behavior. obviously it's different if someone is writing pedophilia or something but i just feel like i shouldn't have to make that disclaimer at all, it feels like common sense but if i don't say something i run the risk of someone messaging me like 'so you support so & so? kill yourself!' y'know.

fluff, angst, or smut : i like all of these in moderation so long as there's depth to it further than just being fluff, angst, or smut for no cause, you know? if it's not signature to our muses, if it doesn't fit narratively, and is just feel-good content, i just get bored, and having any of this in back to back to back to back threads of just one roleplay genre is like being smothered to death with chocolate cake, i only like a little bit once in a while otherwise i get sick of it, y'know.

plots or memes : plotting 100%, but even though i heavily prefer plotting, i don't often have the energy for it? even if i really like the other muse's portrayal. or, alternatively, i will do all of this plotting in my head, and just like. never act on it, or bring it to my roleplay partner, due to this weird ocd-adjacent anxiety symptom i'm trying to break now that i have meds to help me out, where i make alot of social rules and conditions for myself that just overall completely pens me up and isolates me. i don't know what it's called but i've just always had that and it gets in the way of what i love doing all the time.

long or short replies : i don't have a reliable perception of long or short replies! i'm happy with two paragraphs but i'll reply with like six or eight paragraphs average because once i get over my anxiety there's really nothing else stopping me and i like run-on sentences and exposition and scenery and internal monologues!! and i know it's not always appropriate sometimes too, like if we agree on a shorter thread for less pressure, but i've always had a hard time knowing where to stop with anything, i have no perception of an appropriate point to cut off? i need like. a reverse nanowrimo.

time to write : apparently 11:00 pm - 6 am est, since that's when i'm most productive lately.

are you like your muses : god i hope not. i did choose to write leon as gay though because, i'm gay myself and it was more comfortable for me, even though he's pretty heterosexual in canon, but that's less from me wanting to relate with him on a point, and more because i have had some really uncomfortable and bad experiences shipping with female muses who didn't respect boundaries in the past. whether that's projecting attraction on me as a person instead of my muse, or wanting me to write noncon or torture porn, and finding a way to take it out on me when i said no or tried to let them down easy, and it's one of those things where looking back on the memory of it gives me the same tight-chested feelings as alot of people get when they've been involved in intense drama and callouts and stuff. just can't do it anymore! maybe that'll change someday ^^

tagged by: @blitzkriegers & @omniterror thamk u both for tagging :) tagging: @ubcs, @sinibell, @valour-bound, @mycelae

[yourfavusescontradictorylabels]

On the carrd it might be good to also include the Stellian flag, as it refers to mspec gays + lesbians - and is used mainly as a term for someone who is queer in all directions, which ofc overlaps to some extent w/ the term gaybian! I myself identify w/ both so I just think it might be a good thing to include. Also mesque (someone who is both mspec gay and mspec les) and omnique (someone who is genderfluid n is gay when masc-aligned + les when fem-aligned) would also be good ones to add as well if possible!!^^

I do think adding mesque would make sense in terms of what information I want to provide within the carrd.

However, I'm indifferent about adding stellian and omnique.

Let's start with stellian.

To quote from the stellian definition itself, a stellian is "Mspec gay. Gay in this instance refers to anybody who uses the label; this can include veldians, lesbians, cenelians, and anyone else who falls under it. Solians and lunians can use this term if they prefer it. Based off of the stars."

With that definition in mind, someone who stellian may not consider themselves gay in every direction. The definition of stellian could allow for individuals who are queer in all terms attraction to be considered gaybians, but a stellian could also be someone who is exclusively an mspec lesbian/lunian or mspec gay/solian.

Also, not everyone who is queer in all directions considers themselves to be gaybian. Some are bisexual, some are pansexual, some are (nonspecifically) bi gay, some are just queer.

As for omnique, the definition I found said, quote "Omnique, omnigay, or semperque is a form of genderfluid and abrosexuality where one's gender identity and/or sexuality changes so that one is always defined as gay or queer, blurring the line of one’s gender and orientation."

Now omnique, could totally be how somebody labels their gaybian experience.

However, from what I read, what the label omnique seems to define, or at least how I interpreted, is an experience that is not inherently gaybian.

I will admit, genderfluidity and fluid orientation is a common characterizer in gaybian experiences, but somebody else's fluid experience, which they choose to label as 'omnique', doesn't automatically mean they're a gaybian.

I like what you've brought to the table though, and I do agree with the context of adding mesque to the carrd would be more informative, I'll definitely consider it.

Have a nice day!

[mxmayonaka]

☆ MxMayonaka/GayOwlAnon ☆

~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, I'm Owl! I'm a 21 year old agender queer witchy artist with far too much time on my hands and a BIG imagination, as well as an obsession for owls! Welcome to my blog!

Common tags I use are:

#owlscreeches (for random things I say)

#owlanswers (for asks)

#owlart (for when I post art)

#owlrequests (for art requests!

#bookmark (for posts I wanna save for later)

#loverboy 💜 (for post that suit my partner and I)

Feel free to ask me anything! I'm pretty much an open book, lol. I also take drawing requests!

Wanna know more about me without having to ask? Check out my Carrd for more info!

~~~~~~~~~~

Rules for art requests:

Nothing hateful

Nothing adult-themed

Nothing of irl people/Youtubers/Streamers

Ocs of yours and fandom characters of course are okay! Just don't expect a fully fledged and rendered drawing, it'll prolly just be a simple sketch!

~~~~~~~~~~

☆ I take also commissions!!!! ☆

~~~~~~~~~~

☆ 2D ☆

Looking for drawings, stickers and more?

Check out this Carrd for more info! It features:

Examples of my art

My prices and discord

My TOS

Message me on Discord for a quote/to start a commission!

I can do:

NSFW/Suggestive/Some fetish art (ADULTS ONLY)

Horror and gore

Humans, Furries, and simple mecha

Character refs and Twitch/Discord emotes/stickers/gifs

Icons and image edits

And more!

~~~~~~~~~~

☆ 3D ☆

Looking for 3D model edits, VRChat ready avatars, and more?

Check out this Carrd for more info! It features:

Examples of my model edits

My prices and discord

My TOS

Message me on Discord for a quote/to start a commission!

I can do:

NSFW assets and textures (ADULTS ONLY)

Heavily modify existing models

Rerig/add more rigging

Extra assets/clothes to any body type plus weight painting from scratch

Direct uploads or sending you the files

And more!

~~~~~~~~~~

☆ Thank you and enjoy your stay!!!! ☆

~~~~~~~~~~

DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU'RE: LGBTQ+phobe, Super [Blank], Racist/Anti-semitic, Pedo/MAP, Anti-kin, Support Autism Speaks, Anti-vaxx and/or Anti-mask, Anti-DID(Not a system but I support them), Support any known pedo/groomer, and/or an Owl House fan(for personal reasons). If I find out you are, I will block you immediately and cancel your commissions without returning the money. This is also mentioned partly in my TOS on both my commissions carrds.

[hellscommission]

CARRD TEMPLATE:      002—PREJUDICE. +  PRIDE   (   collab with the lovely @plutocommissions.   ) made for a multimuse blog,   with solo blog option available.

price is currently 12$+,  pay what you can afford ! CLICK   HERE   TO   PURCHASE   PRIDE    & CLICK   HERE   TO   PURCHASE   PREJUDICE.

—    this is a carrd template for  multimuse rp blogs  with a landing page,  a rules page,   a muse list page,    an affiliates page   &  an optional solo blog set up ! —    at the least,  it requires  pro-lite plan  utilising more than 50 elements. —    do not remove credit.    can replace with your own graphics if you wish.   settings are extremely accessible + easy to adjust. —    please leave a like or reblog    if using and to support my work !

[leaf-green-spring]

My weirdest pet peeve is when you click on peoples' Carrds and their home/about page is all "^w^ 💞 ✨ 😽 :D" and then you get into their byf and they're all like "if you [dni criteria] I will plunge you into boiling pitch" like even when it's not targeted at me it's such a jarring contrast in tone

[bugflies00]

BASIC INFO

alex  ✧  18 ✧  he / they  ✧  french  

header + icon (noxious-fennec)

l'manberg quote

twitter

carrd

💥terfs go fuck yourselves💥

HI :D

• im like a cockroach 🪳 one of the few dsmp mains left. you will not make me move on i will be posting about these guys in 2037 . i like both characters & ccs*

*i don't support cc!wilbur and i block those who do. please ignore past posts made about him before the news came out. i've always viewed the characters as separate from the ccs, so when i post about c!wilbur its completely separate from him . im not going to argue about this, feel free to block me if you don't like it instead of posting essays in my inbox

-> on a similar note i hate dream + dream team and fans of theirs are not welcome here

• im a ctommy, cwilbur and cctommy fan first and foremost!! i mostly post ccrimeboys, also ctntduo, cclingyduo, cbenchtrio or cbeeduo...

-> i post a lot of /r ctntduo and i gave up on tagging #dsmp shipping a long time ago . so if that makes you uncomfortable just be warned

• i also love tubbo, techno, quackity, ranboo, niki, jack, phil, and others

• i talk a lot about my au the fostering au!! the f! abbreviations refer to that. masterpost down below

• i also post about my other interests, which include but are not limited to: the sims 4, dan and phil, chappell roan, sanders sides, keeper of the lost cities, hunger games, percy jackson/riordanverse, heathers, warrior cats, six of crows, over the garden wall

• i prefer masc terms pls use those thank you^__^

• i ALWAYS reblog art that i left a like on, if you only got a like i Promise i’ve queued the post and your rb Will come eventually

• i swear and use caps lock untagged! i also tend to use lots of punctuation for emphasis (????? and !!!!!! and the likes) it doesn’t mean i’m mad or anything im just kinda loud lmao 

• sometimes i make suicide or death jokes and i mostly tag them, but if i forgot feel free to remind me

DIRECTION

DTIYS (from last year but theres no time limit)

go follow @tmmyarchive my baby . tommy fanart archive blog

and i also made an archive for everything c!crimeboys -> @ccrimeboys !!!

masterpost for my dsmp AU (the fostering AU)

talking under #alex.rambles.txt

drawings under #alex.arts.jpg 

writing under #alex.writes.txt

-> using my art for pfps, edits & headers is cool *with credit* but no reposts ever (if you make an edit please tag me, i’d love to see it!!)

reblog system is #other people’s art or writing, music, analysis, etc

#helpful stuff is either posts i want to save for later use, or stuff that i think can benefit anyone !! so it ranges from art refs to general life tips, feel free to look through it :]

anything you need tagged just ask 

donate to the sarcoma foundation here <3

(credit)

(credit)

[saltminerising]

E from Light is a coward who has to hide their shitty little transphobic "discourse" on their carrd because they're too scared to say it on main (direct quote: "Genderfluid, multigenders, and agender are the ones I very strongly don't believe can exist, just going off of what we know about the brain.")

[exclamaquest]

Hey! I was curious because I’ve seen she/her chihiro posts on your blog. Why do you head canon chihiro as a girl? No hate at all it just seems like a pretty big chunk of their character is about being a guy and disliking being feminine or seen as such. Really not trying to argue just curious about the hc!

totally willing to explain!

It's gonna be under the cut, since it's a little long. Sorry about that!

Note: If any of this phrasing seems laced with malintent or otherwise meanspirited in the slightest, that is not my intention!

The first thing I need to point out is that it's not headcanoning her as a girl, it's recognizing the fact that she is absolutely coded as a trans woman in the text. as i am TME myself, I'm going to point you to some resources by trans women in addition to my answer:

here's a good post summing a lot up and here's a carrd that explains it more! Here is another great article that's got a really good perspective. I'd highly recommend reading all three because, again, they are written by trans women, and as much as I can do my best to explain, it's honestly better to hear it directly from those affected.

In response to your point about her arc: Her arc isn't about masculinity itself, or about gender. It's very specifically about strength, including the strength to be yourself. To quote the first link:

"It’s true that Chihiro’s gender come about as a result of feeling inferior about her masculinity and hiding herself away to avoid being bullied by cis men for her lack of masculinity. This is an extremely common thing among young trans women. Cis men typically don’t start wearing dresses or changing their name when they’re afraid of their masculinity, in fact in most cases it’s the opposite. They generally only do wear dresses when they do feel confident in their masculinity."

With this said, it's also important to point out that part of the fallacy of saying that she must be a cis man because she "wants to be manly" is playing into Chihiro's own flaws. One of her major problems is internally associating "strength" with "masculinity", when a major message in her arc is that Chihiro is more than strong enough already without being masculine.

In fact, a contributing reason to Mondo killing her is because she was already stronger than him without being masculine. The game goes to lengths to show that her way of thinking is flawed and that she's more than strong enough already, and quite frankly, coming out of the game with the message that strength DOES in fact equal masculinity (which is where Chihiro tripped up) does a disservice to her character, her message, and her arc as a whole.

Also, it's very clear that Chihiro is a trans woman written specifically from the perspective of a transphobic cis man. If the author sees all trans women as insecure cis men, he will write a trans woman as an insecure cis man (which is very clearly what happened with Chihiro). Nearly everything about her arc and character is highly reflective of being transgender--down to her death and how it's handled being a trans person's worst nightmare.

It's important to note that she is very specifically portrayed in a transmisogynistic light. Her death, the way she was outed, and the tropes she play into all reflect transmisogynistic threads found in fiction the world over. You can't just wave that away by seeing her as transmasc or as a cis guy, and it's disrespectful to do so, to say the least.

Hopefully this clears things up for you! Let me know if there's anything else you need explained and I can totally point you in the direction of more resources.

[samantha-ann-fuchsgruber31]

Lockheart Arden Publishing

My Literature Journey

My Blog, ☾ Lockheart Arden Publishing 💖

☾ My most recent novel update here ♡ 

♡☾ Find delicious foods I’ve made here at “Cooking with Samantha” ♡

It is currently January 20th, 2022 at the time of this post. Hello to anyone and everyone reading this! My name is Samantha, and recently I have fallen back in love with reading books. For such a long time, the thought of reading never enticed me or got me interested because it would always take me so long to get through a book, and I always had to re-read passages. But in late November, all of that changed after reading a novel for a history course I was taking. Since then I have read a few books of my own choosing that I was excited about, and I loved them all so much!! ~It’s very empowering to start enjoying something you never thought you would. ♡

Because of that, I decided I wanted a place to document all of the books I’ve been reading and currently reading, so without further ado... I made a Reading Master List ...and you can find me at that link!! I also have my GoodReads account here. Starting this new journey is for myself and myself alone. Certainly there are people in the world that read more than I do, but I’m trying to free myself from the constant comparison of myself to others, and do something that makes me happy simply because I enjoy it. Reading feels like it has done extraordinarily good things for my mental health as well and gives me a sense of purpose and direction. If anyone wants to see everything I am reading, that would be wonderful, but even if no one is interested, that’s wonderful too. ♥️

At the end of the day you should aways remember you are loved and worthy, and that no one else has the right to tell you otherwise. I wouldn’t be at the place I am now in my life if it weren’t for God. He has put all of this on my heart and face my own insecurities whilst being resilient.✨

Now, of course I must end this post with a quote that an author named Bianca Sparacino wrote, “growth isn’t this comfortable, miraculous thing. It can get ugly, it can get confusing. It’s gritty, it’s hard. It’s difficult to confront yourself sometimes; it’s difficult to be the person who does things differently, who doesn’t settle. But it’s the greatest gift you will ever give yourself. It will push you towards figuring out what your own personal version of happiness looks like; and when you grow on your own terms, when you figure out what actually matters to you, and when you carve out your own path, you live on your own terms. You love on your own terms. You become the person you have always wanted to be, rather than the person you were always told to be, and that is beautiful. Because when it comes down to it—life is about making yourself proud on your own terms. It’s about finding a happiness that works for you.” ♡

Update on December 29th, 2022: A few days ago, I made a facebook page for my blog, here is the link 💖 This is my passion, but I am trying hard to get more exposure on my blog and the things I write, with all of the time I spend on it in my daily life—on top of being a current student in college. This is the link to my official Blog, Lockheart Arden Publishing ♥️ On there, I post essays about self-compassion, faith, philosophy, and even a little bit of psychology! I am proud of how far it has come since June of 2021 when I started! Additionally, here is my Carrd page. Thank you all for your support and for reading my writing. This whole thing makes me so happy, and I am so thankful to have the privilege of pursuing a passion. It's not something I wish to take for granted. Thank you again. ♡

[posi-pan]

hello! so i made this carrd on pomosexuality pomosexuality-carrd-co but my account is really small so it couldn't reach many people. if you don't mind, can you please check it out and tweet about it if it's not a problem..?

Hi! I’ve been sitting on answering this message because i don’t want my response to come off as rude. Your carrd doesn’t mention the book about pomosexuality written by the people who coined the term, which is pretty important if you’re carrd is meant to be educational. I hope you don’t mind me giving you some quotes from the book that you can add to the carrd.

The book is PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality by Carol Queen and Lawrence Schimel, published in 1997. The term pomosexual is briefly explained, “PoMo: short for PostModern: in the arts, a movement following after and in direct reaction to Modernism; culturally, an outlook that acknowledges diverse and complex points of view. PoMoSexual: the queer erotic reality beyond the boundaries of gender, separatism, and essentialist notions of sexual orientation.”

And here are some more explanations and insight to what they intended pomosexual to mean, which is not as simple as being a label for someone who doesn’t want, like, or fit labels.

“We don't propose that ‘pomosexual’ replace LGBT&F. We're not interested in adding another new name to the slew we already have, though we acknowledge the usefulness of having one name by which all LGBT&Fs might be called. ‘Pomosexual’ references homosexuality even as it describes the community's outsiders, the queer queers who can't seem to stay put within a nice simple identity. We coin the term to situate this book and its essays within and in relation to the LGBT&F community. It is in every way an artifact of, and in many ways a backlash toward, this community—or rather, to certain assumptions widely held within and/or about it, essentialist assumptions about what it means to be queer. We react against these assumptions in the same way that in the art world Postmodernism was a reaction against Modernism.”

-

“Postmodernism looks for art and meaning sourced in the mundane, in wacky or arcane juxtapositions, in low as well as high culture. In this it bears some relationship to camp, queerdom's own ironic social theory, which developed to let us criticize (particularly heterocentrist) relations of power. Postmodern thought invites us to get used to the Zen notion of ‘multiple subjectivities’—the idea that there is no solid, objective reality, that each of us experiences our reality subjectively, affected (or influenced) by our unique circumstances. This mode of thought encourages overlapping and sometimes contradictory realities, a life of investigation and questioning as opposed to essentialism's quest for the One Truth, the innate quality, indubitable facts on a silver platter, the answer to everything.

What happens to identities based on essentialist thinking when we begin to challenge fixed notions of gender identity, binary thinking, monosexuality? When we want names that acknowledge and help shape how various we are? When gender dysphoria becomes first a sex toy or a way of life, then an inspiration to think about the mutability of everything we have been taught to consider fixed? When we insist on identities that embrace our diversities and refuse to gloss them over?

The problem with any ascribed and adopted identity is not what it includes, but what it leaves out. Indeed, there are so very many ways to live in the world, countless sources of affinity, that our sexualities and gender/identities only go so far in describing, constructing, and supporting us. To combat the ‘cosmic aloneness’ that is integral to being human, that aching awareness that no one can truly share your experiences (paralleling the koan that one can never stand in the same river twice; the water that made up the river at that moment is forever gone once the moment has passed), we form communities and subcommunities grouped around shared history and interests, links of family and ethnicity, religion and sexuality, anything which makes us feel more connected to others and less alone.”

-

“Twenty year ago, identity seemed self-evident. There were men, and there were women. Some were gay and some were straight. Bisexuals and transsexuals were suspect because their position on the sexual spectrum implied transition, disloyalty, or kinky hedonism; because their position on the gender spectrum implied permeability of a membrane we were all raised to see as solid; and because, when all was said and done, even homosexuals and women mostly believed that biology was destiny. The dissent had only to do with what that destiny might be.

But bisexual never shut up and went away. Omnisexuals and pansexuals began to dot the landscape. Women who had been born with penises sought to attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and, slowly, other dykes began to agree they ought to be there. Men born without cocks and balls fought doctors for permission to get gender reassignment surgery even though they intended to begin new lives as gay men. The practices and language of S/M began to move out of the dungeons and into the discourse. Lesbian butch/femme reasserted the erotics of gender in what was supposed to be an androgynous future, keynoted by what de Beauvoir called ‘the miracle of the mirror.’ Phrases like ‘butch bottom’ began to dot the personals. Anyone with eyes and a brain could see categories breaking down, assumptions rupturing, clear-cut identities going the way of the Berlin Wall.

Hence the ‘pomosexual,’ who, like the queer s/he closely resembles, may not be tied to a single sexual identity, may not be content to reside within a category measurable by social scientists or acknowledged by either rainbow-festooned gays or by Ward and June Cleaver.

Pomosexuality lives in the spaces in which all other nonbinary forms of sexual and gender identity reside—a boundary-free zone in which fences are crossed for the fun of it, or simply because some of us can't be fenced in. It challenges either/or categorizations in favor of largely unmapped possibility and the intense charge that comes with transgression. It acknowledges the pleasure of that transgression, as well as the need to transgress limits that do not make room for all of us.”

-

“We do hope this book makes people question and rethink their own identities—not necessarily with the intent of changing them, but of better understanding other identities. We hope it pushes people who live more or less nonproblematic lesbian and gay lives to look more clearly and compassionately at their neighbors for whom things are not as simple. We hope this book makes some people feel less alone.

We learn and live through our stories; when something wonderful happens in our lives or we arrive at some profound revelation, our impulse is not to hoard it but to share the story with our friends and families, with our communities, so they can recognize themselves—and know us better—in the telling. This book shares some stories of investigations, of assumptions overturned, within our communities and our lives. We hope these stories inspire and entertain, that they make you think, that they raise questions.

We pomosexuals are the queer's queers, the ones who will no stay in the boxes marked ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ without causing a fuss—just as we all burst out of the boxes the straight world tried to grow us in. At bottom, we want our communities (whatever they are or are not called) to embrace and support more of us.”

I know those quotes are pretty long, but i think it’s important to share as much information about pomosexuality as you can if you want people to educated on it. And since this comes from the people who coined the term, it’s much better than any other sources.

I really hope you don’t take offense to this. I really don’t mean any disrespect, I just want to help people be educated on queerness.

[desdecourse]

breaking down the "Debunking Sysmeds" carrd (just for kicks 😍) part 2!!

here is the carrd linked again from part 1: this carrd

to reiterate from the first post, i will be referring to the person who made the carrd as the "creator" for simplicity's sake and using they/them as i do not know their pronouns (pls let me know if you do know what pronouns i should be using!)

----------

THE "CLAIMS AND REBUTTALS" (continued)

the fourth point is quite hefty!! so let's get into why the creator's rebuttal of "You're not Endogenic, you just have repressed trauma" is utterly laced with fallacies.

rather than actually rebutting this idea, the creator instead refers to this as "gaslighting" and insists that it would trigger people who don't know they have trauma into unpacking their trauma when they aren't ready. i don't necessarily think this is false, in fact, i definitely agree people should address their trauma when they're ready. however, this point is literally saying that all people who are systems have trauma, whether known or unknown (thus making them traumagenic), and instead of rebutting this, the creator just calls those who say this "gaslighters" and attempts to establish a moral high ground. it's a strawman - no one is saying that learning of your trauma when you aren't in the right headspace is a good thing, they are saying that trauma is ultimately what creates systems. should the creator wish to rebut this claim, they should focus on the trauma aspect rather than moralizing the claim.

the creator also highlights their experiences with traumatic memories they weren't ready for and pseudomemories they now experience as a potentially dangerous outcome of this claim. should this prove to be common, this is still cause for concern! people with no mental illness do not develop pseudomemories of extreme trauma, and those with extreme trauma still must be concerned about it, regardless of if they are a system or not. both of these are things that need to be addressed.

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their fifth point to rebut is the statement "You're not a system, you're just RP-ing/Daydreaming". i'm not going to share my thoughts on this one because i need to develop them more succinctly and i believe they deserve their own post, but i welcome analysis of that section if anyone has any!

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the sixth point rebutted is the idea that "DID is rare, it only affects 1% of the population." i agree with the creator that this is inaccurate, as does a majority of the system community! i don't see how it affects the validity of endogenic systems, as endogenic systems aren't DID systems.

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this seventh point is just absolutely drenched in some crazy phrases that i am SO excited to unpack, and it is related to the creator combatting the idea that "You are ableist if you use the label Endogenic, and you are appropriating a trauma disorder."

the creator once again brings up the idea that systems are "dissociative disorders, not trauma disorders," which, as previously established, are one in the same. they use this statement to argue that that part of the claim is wrong, i guess?? so strike one there. a direct quote from this section is "people are not inherently ableist for simply just existing and using a self-identifier" which is a total no thoughts, head empty thing to say - imagine if someone "self-identified" as having a severe physical illness, but slightly to the left, and then claimed to be the marginalized ones next to the people with an actual trauma disorder?

now, here's my all time favorite line from this whole carrd: "Labelling them as ableist for just existing is like calling a mixed race person racist for engaging in one of their races' cultures."

insert multiple question marks????????

as someone who is mixed race, i don't even think i have words for this one!!?? like i feel like i should never have had to explain that people self-identifying with a trauma disorder while actively claiming to not have trauma isn't the same as someone who can legitimately identify with a group being criticized from joining that group. like... pardon my french, how fucking stupid can you be? that was aggressive, but geez, like come on dude. have at least a little bit of awareness of your surroundings and your words and the way people experience the world. i swear no endo argument is complete without a little side of racism. your cute little "oh i have friends in my head for fun and not based on anything bad and it doesn't negatively affect me ☺️" is not even remotely close to "i am constantly in limbo between two worlds and am shunned from both, i have no sense of identity and my experiences often go unheard." gimme a break.

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the eighth claim is another big one, "[Term] is a traumagenic only term." their source for this one is complete dogshit, from a blog, and actually supports the idea that "system" is a DID-specific term, so not really sure what they set off to achieve there! the source says that "system" was used to refer to trauma-based systems in the 1980s and that endos started using "system" around the early 2000s, then goes on to say that DID systems never "reclaimed" the word, so it still belongs to all plurals. not... super sure how that logic works!

another interesting quote from this section is "Those labels cannot "belong" to the traumagenic community, because they are literally words used in everyday life with different meanings depending on the context." the word "belong" is used so interestingly here - turning this logic to, say, another mental illness, reveals the strangeness of this argument. it's like if someone who had anxiety said "the term 'ocd' does not belong to the ocd community!" just because they perceived some of their actions as similar to those with ocd and wanted to use the word. it doesn't "belong" to that community, it just is the word that that community is. that would not be the person with anxiety's term to use, full stop.

additionally, the "context" part is a total red herring. obviously, if the words are being used in the context of, say, a computer operating system, or the splitting of molecules, or the switching of seats on a train, these words have nothing to do with systems. to try to make a "gotcha!" point about context giving words meaning is a weak argument.

to be honest, i don't particularly care about who uses what word, i just find the logical fallacies here utterly shocking and wished to address them.

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continue on to part 3 for an analysis of the last two rebuttals and an analysis of the sources! if you've made it this far, thank you!

i will post part 3 tomorrow, i need some time to read through the sources and i'm tired xoxo