#ergo: have gay sex about it

[fast-burn]

You are so on the mark. The combination of Max’s daddy issues and Daniel’s Max issues makes for a truly delicious angst smut combo meal.

listen, i just think they should TRY making out a bit and see where it goes because i'm pretty sure it'd be absolute rocket fuel

[watsername]

this post was supposed to be a lighthearted post about aspec people by highlighting them in a joking way that still instills positivity and pride in the identity .

unfortunately too many people are too chronically online and media illiterate to realise that so let’s break down the post.

‘shout out to the people not having gay sex this pride month’

this was intentionally a worded to counter the ‘have lots of gay sex this pride month’ jokes and positivity that surround pride discussions. The wording directly associates with anti-queer activity and their frequent attempt to divert attention from queer people during the month of pride. it is worded intentionally. it is supposed to seem counter active to pride .

the humour is then seeing a pride flag. specifically the asexual flag- in which case this stands for an umbrella term across the aspec community which is more recognisable than the variety of aspec flags that i had seen whilst looking for a flag for this post . the grey line of the asexual flag stands for the spectrum between allosexual and asexual it represents the degrees of asexuality and in so, with the purple, stood for the aspec community in this post.

if the joke is still lost on you, the idea was to read a statement that counters the idea of queer pride and find it recontextualised to humorously represent an identity associated with the lack of sexual attraction; ergo no gay sex .

what this post is NOT, is a comment on varied asexual attraction. it us not a commentary on what makes a valid asexual person or whether or not you specifically will have sexual inter course this pride month . it is not saying asexuals are not allowed to have sex . this post is pushing any stereotype of asexuality . op is a sex having aspec person. i am demisexual . i have been with my partner for almost 2 years and engage in sexual activity .

what this post IS, is a joke. it’s a fucking joke i cant make it any clearer. not every single joke is going to relate to your own experiences and that’s ok. not every post about asexuality is going to relate to your own experiences that’s ok. you need to stop taking things at face value and actually engage in some media literacy to understand when something is a reductionist and stereotyping commentary which is inherently negative and when something uses a reductionist approach to convey humour because a lot of you really seem to be struggling with that one.

i fear a lot of you take yourselves too seriously and can’t find the humour in simple tumblr shitposts to the point where i’m having to actually explain what i thought was a very easy concept to grasp because it has upset a lot of people . stop taking everything so seriously .

if you are offended by the original post that is actually a you problem. that is something you have to work on where you cannot accept any form of lighthearted media that does not directly align with your own experiences . bc it’s not serious . it’s a joke x

also allo people can fuck off bc this is literally a post celebrating aspec ppl idc if your gf lives across the country or if you’re just a single loser this literally has nothing to do w u

yall make me want to kms for making me do this

[beautifulpersonpeach]

so just to confirm, jikookers genuinely believe that in an extremely homophobic military system and country that just reaffirmed the illegality of any form of homosexual interaction during enlistment (to the point that they can face a prison sentence), two queer individuals in a gay relationship would put themselves, their relationship, and their careers at risk by enlisting in the same camp together through the buddy system in which they will have to be together essentially at all times surrounded by other soldiers, supervisors etc for 18 months? there is no private time or sneaking off in the military so jikookers genuinely think that while already dealing with the stress and difficulty of enlistment within itself, jimin and jungkook would subject themselves to an extra stressor of controlling their emotions and actions with each other at all times for that long? like you all actually think they said “yeah fuck it we’d rather be by each others side while facing the risk of getting caught, sent to prison, and having our careers destroyed instead of being separated for just 18 months out of our whole lives”. like how do u think they’d even remotely survive those 18 months?

***

You know, when you put it that way I think you have a point. It's ludicrous to think two queer men can co-habit in the same unit without climbing all over each other and outing themselves. Jikookers must've been deaf, blind, all thinking faculties out to lunch when Jungkook talked about how Seven is autobiographical (the female subject in the song not being just a technicality). Expecting Jungkook of all people to go days, weeks, and months on end without fucking his main squeeze is kinda nuts ngl. Especially when everybody knows gay men are overly promiscuous, deviant, sex-addicted sons of Lucifer who just happen to look good in perms and eyeliner. One glance at all that cake Jimin got in the back and Jungkook will start keening like a blue-balled bonobo before jumping him in broad daylight. Right? Perhaps it's a wonder jikook survived 10 years in the spotlight while being in the most hyper-visible group in a homophobic society, even representing their homophobic country in official capacities.

What good is a relationship if you cannot have sex for any period of time, after all? Can you even call that a relationship?

Also, your point about how there's no private time in the military is a godsend because it just reminded me of a curious phenomenon that happened this year. I noticed it happened maybe two or three times this year when ARMYs and even people tangentially related to ARMYs collectively hallucinated seeing Seokjin and Hoseok outside the military base. In fact, this is what's convinced me beyond all reasonable doubt that BTS's fandom is a cult.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Jikookers must be dumb, high, or both to think it's a good thing for jikook to possibly mean more to each other and still choose to enlist together under the Buddy program. Clearly it's unthinkable for a couple to weigh the strength they could gain by being together, as more important than the risk of being caught in an explicitly compromising situation. It's silly of jikookers to think companionship can happen in all sorts of ways even while in the military; and flat out ridiculous of them to believe that jikook at the end of the day started out as friends, have been through some of their most life-defining moments together, and are still one of the closest pairings in BTS.

Thank you for taking the time to share such an enlightening opinion with me, Anon. Your ideas were persuasive and yes, you have me convinced. It is impossible for jikook to be jikooking in the military ergo jikook must not exist.

[angstics]

On rewatch, max seemed to be going through a certain kind of Nightmare during “gay week” that Must be attributed to a turbulent episode of internalized homophobia.

My textual evidence is: his confusion / discomfort over being referred to as “daddy”, his almost panicked reaction to avery talking about the threeway (he mentions “the pact” three different times while tristan is open to it… max seems very embarrassed and wary), of course the awkwardness with tristan. There’s also a general air of coldness from him the whole episode. He smiles a few times, but there is a Noticeable Pitch Drop in his voice. Like it’s wild to watch Any other episode then this. Jj flowers

He is going THRU some shit. And im not sure why? He liked the threeway (“wonderful”), he has 0 awkwardness with avery (smiles at her, no tension with her), he doesn’t particularly Fight for avery (doesnt ask her to choose). The tristan fight is the symptom of something big. I guess from their sexual encounter to the quiet to the awkwardness to the throuple suggestion to the tension to the professional fight to the increased tension eased by cap to the apology and relationship breakdown. then he smiles at them.

I feel like. You can see when the tension became intense. Right when avery brings It Up. Then max gets jealous? I feel like. That isnt the appropriate response OR response time. Also during the initial talk, he KEPT trying to shut it down. Thats actually the only thing he says. He doesnt sound jealous. He sounds ashamed. Like i said, embarrassed. Over what? Sharing a girl? Would he have felt this awkward if he slept with her then later she slept with tristan? No. You know how i know. Because he didnt really do anything when tristan and avery kissed and he saw. Afair. And you know what.???? It couldn’t even have been he was ashamed of doing weird sex because hed ALREADY done a threeway. And he called it BAD because they were more into each other. YOU KNOW WHAT HE CALLED THIS AVERY TRISTAN THREEWAY? WONDERFUL!!!

The distressing part was that it was good for everyone. Two people Werent more into each other than with a third. Uh oh! There’s no third he realizes!!! The angry embarrassed ashamed part has to be from the total enjoyment he had. Which necessitates sexual pleasure from whatever Tristan was doing, and seeing Avery & Tristan together. Ergo. #InternailzedHomophobia

Theres a billion more things to talk about. Like the vagueness of Tristan’s sexuality, all the IMPLICATIONS throughout the show in terms of max’s sexuality, the episode’s marked separation btwn Gay People and max & tristan. The theme of “too much” and what that means in a tv show ABOUT indulgence. Ummm!!!!

[citizensun]

Queerness and the House of Usher (spoilers!)

See I just added these Thoughts to the tags in @quecksilvereyes 's post but now I have Feelings too

TFotHoU (or HoU, as I will refer to it here), as expected from a Mike Flannagan show, has a bunch of Queer Rep™ to talk about. HoU is, also, about remarkably evil people - amoral capitalists who'll step over anyone if it means they'll get something from it. And look! Some of them are queer! Kinky too!

That's bad queer representation... right?

The show isn't that clear when stablishing sexualities, but we see that at least three of the Usher kids - Napoleon, Camille and Victorine - have same sex SOs/assistants with curious job descriptions. Prospero's taste for orgies probably implies queerness too, but honestly I don't remember if he gets it going with any guys in the story. I honestly have no idea about Tamerlane's voyerism thingie and Frederick is the only one with a "traditional family" going on.

Unrelated, but: Leo is definitely cheating on his bf Julius. Completely dismissing about his worries for him too. And for his cat. That's objectively evil, clearly. Vic literally killed her fiancée Alessandra, though she didn't stuff her under the floorboard, which is an L when compared to Poe's original. Cam doesn't believe in true love. Perry blackmailed his sister in law. Mean. He's also got a surprisingly high kill count for the family's disappointment, but since unlike Roderick he only killed rich people, we stan. I don't belong in Kinky spaces so I haven't got a big take on Tammie, only that - well, she's completely dismissing of her husband and sees him as a prop, just like the sex worker she hires.

Huh.

See, the nature of a story called "the fall of X family" is that X family is going to be the main character. The title kinda implies that they're falling for a reason, ergo, they're despicable fucking people. And they're queer! They're very queer. Many flavors of gay. They're the main characters, and they're monsters, and they're gay.

No, that's not bad rep.

Queerness as a movement, a community and a theory is very focused on scaping a cisheteronormative society's binaries (ie man/woman, husband/wife, public/private) and creating living conditions to those who fall outside of these categories - mlms and wlws, the trans, the nbs, the aros and aces... we are all queer, strange and estranged from this weird and limited worldview. And so we create a community for ourselves. It's very focused on care and anti-stablishment. Since a cisheteronormative society tends to be very white, rich and western, it's also focuses on anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. Y'all know that, this is Tumblr and we love leftist Discourse.

I also know many, many gay people irl who are not like that at all. Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, terfs, completely apolitical people and the like. Sexuality at it's core is personal, not political, so there are gay people out there who are perfectly comfortable with their sexuality on an individual level but do not see the point of getting involved in the broader context. They're queer, but are they...?

Well—

Not to mention there's lots of asshole gays out there! Don't you have a shitty ex? Have you never been almost run over by a drunken butch who blew cigar smoke into your face? I have! Life experiences are just like that. Maybe you should touch more grass. You'll probably find a lucky gift from your neighbour's dog, who is an astrology-obsessed bisexual and also really hot but stopped making out with you at a party once she found out you're a pisces (the neighbour, not the dog).

(Granted, none of this is as bad as implanting an experimental heart contraption into the fiancée you just killed because she dared to have ethical principles and then being so consumed with grief you stab yourself in front you'd your dad but you know how it goes. We're not the 1%.)

My point is, queer people are people. We are complex. We fuck up, and sometimes there's still times to fix things and sometimes... there isn't. We're consumed by jealousy and regret and sometimes we're so locked into our own head we stop believing the rest of the world is real too. Just like any other people, because unfortunately, queerness isn't a sign of morality.

And even if queerness does mean community, kindness and acceptance, tell me... Where the hell would the Usher kids get those from? The people around them are not really peers – they're ass-istants, blowjob-giving apartments, orgy mates, heart surgery providers, hired fitness moneybags, perfect housewives. Even if the partners are all shown to care for the Ushers, there's still a distance, a power gap, that makes the relationships fundamentally wrong.

And the partners? Arguably they're the good queer rep in the show, but look – even when Julius and Alessandra are shown to be good people (or at least people with an ethical boundary), they're not the good gays, they're simply the good SO's to a family of psychos. Exactly like Bill and Morrie, who afawk are straight people.

Which leads us to HoU's parameter of morality - Auguste Dupin. He refuses to drink the Amontillado, symbol of all the Usher opulence over the years. He got screwed over by the Usher twins and by the Raven herself, but he refused to cave in (except for the informant part, admittedly). He's not a good gay guy; he is gay and he is a good man.

The fundamental difference between our show's main tragic yaoi couple isn't that Auggie is a happily out gay man (and therefore is good) while Roderick is a sad divorced hetero (and therefore is bad). Auggie is the richer man because he is a good man; he has a spouse and children and grandchildren he loves with all his heart. He has a family and a community and he has found a sort of happiness no money can buy. Roderick owns the world – but what does he really have? What do his children even have? How could they ever build communities for themselves if they were never in one? Their father made them compete for his love. He never nurtured their bonds, he just showered them with money and excess until it was too much for them to handle. Juno herself pointed out - they were never a family. The House of Usher was only that. A house. It is empty and soulless.

What is queerness without a community? How could the people who represent the relentless corporate normativity and cutthroat capitalism ever be good queer rep? How can they even be queer?

Hear me out: on the most individual, simple level, being queer is still about not fitting in. These kids are bastards. They are are PoC and women in a predominantly male and white dominated space. They're on top of the world, but they're still outsiders to their own House. How could they not be queer?

And yes, I know this discussion takes a different turn when it comes to representation in media, but it's not like Flannagan fell into a Hays Code-era flamboyant villain trope. Queerness is just there. Just like Victorine and August are both black people in (arguably) the opposite ends of the morality spectrum, there are queer characters of many kinds here. The story just happens to be about the fucked up ones.

HoU is a poignant critique of capitalism and a surprisingly funny adaptation of Poe. We'll judge it by that. It happens to be queer – more things should be.

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

"They should, because the false philosophy behind gay ideology has been destroying Western civilization at least since the 60s."

If you don't mind, could you elaborate on this or your thought process a bit more?

Sure! There are actually several philosophies behind gay ideology, but I'll just explain the ones that come off the top of my head.

Gnosticism. This ideology says the physical realm (our bodies) tells us nothing about who we are or our telos (what we are for). Rather, truth is discovered through special knowledge we can only acquire by spurning the physical realm. Ergo, the fact that humans are sexually dimorphic is not instructive for our behavior. Nevermind that homosexual sex leads to all sorts of diseases, fatal or otherwise, that heterosexual sex doesn't (or even the fact that promiscuous heterosexual sex leads to its own host of diseases). This same Gnosticism has also led to the absurdity of transgender ideology, which states a person may have a male soul and a female body, vice versa, or that maleness and femaleness are not real categories at all. This Gnosticism has destroyed our civil understanding of marriage, of family, of medicine, and even of plain language.

Radical individualism. This ideology posits that the fundamental unit of society is the individual, and therefore the highest priority of that society must be the protection and/or facilitation of that individual's desires and consent. Ergo, even if Gnosticism destroys society, the individual's desire to adopt it trumps the Common Good (which is different from socialist ideas of the Greater Good). However, radical individualism cannot possibly be true. An individual does not appear into being from thin air, and create himself at his pleasure. He is born to a mother and father, who mold him by their parenting, and to whom he owes a duty of care and honor. The fundamental unit of society is the family (and by reduction, marriage). This radical individualism also fuels the transgender movement (it's almost as if redefining marriage redefined human beings or something).

Cultural Marxism. A key component to any liberal ideology, Cultural Marxism states that some groups by mere virtue of their properties are inherently oppressed while the other group is inherently oppressor. Thus, normal people are unfairly privileged by virtue of being normal, and homosexuals are oppressed by virtue of being homosexual. Anyone who adopts this view is going to have a hostile attitude toward remedies for Gnosticism or Radical individualism, because such remedies will naturally increase the privilege of normal people over homosexuals. For example, marriage will be restricted to those unions who actually have potential to create and raise more humans, which is the civil function of marriage in the first place. The benefits which may accompany marriage (such as tax breaks) are to support that end; they are not the end in themselves. However, this increase of privilege is not manmade (as the Cultural Marxists insist), but a simple and beautiful consequence of nature/natural civilization being permitted to work as it was designed to work. Cultural Marxism destroys these natural courses by wrongly defining any privilege whatsoever as inherently unjust.

[ghouljams]

I've just finished work so this might be rambley sorry but your thoughts and the discussion around oral is really really fascinating, both in how our experiences differ and overlap. If you don't want or don't have the energy to respond to this that's all good! I just wanted to share. For some context, I'm a late 20s, non American, bisexual afab that is gender non conforming to the point where I've been called he, she, they, it, and have never quite figured out if I'm cis or trans.

Openly out/non stealth trans or nb people weren't seen or known about in my home town, so here I'm gonna say man and woman rather than amab or afab cause I think it'll convey the experiences and attitude around me growing up better. People were also homophobic so these next two paragraphs aren't nice. However, they are not beliefs or opinions that I hold today.

Growing up, it was seen as normal for a woman to blow a man even if the woman didn't like it, it was expected because That's How Sex Works. Woman blows man, man has sex with woman. Men who went down on woman were considered weird, because ew vaginas are nasty and it doesn't do anything to contribute to How Sex Works. For a man, fingering or having sex with a woman was something to be proud of having done. I don't think bisexuals really existed, you were gay or straight and ooh boy there were Opinions on what they did. Like lesbians were all butch and hairy so it was gross that they went down on each other. Gay men were weird for blowing each other but more weird and more unmanly for actually blowing another man.

And then I figured out I like women in my mid/late teens, and thought I was a lesbian for a long time because of the good old childhood trauma and not wanting to participate in sex with men because blowing a man is How Sex Works and that's a trigger for me. And I became very confused as to why I was meant to think vaginas are gross because I had one, it isn't gross or weird, so why would eating pussy be gross or weird? Unfortunately, still being in my smallish town and being the only woman with a men's haircut under the age of 50, I became the weird looking baby butch lesbian that's obviously gross because she must eat gross butch lesbian pussy. I was *16*.

Then I moved to a larger city and I unlearned some things and learned others, and we move into 2018-today, where I'm happily bisexual. I've dated men, women, nb people. I've received and given oral to all three, and dated straight and bi men, and bi and lesbian women. And I think this is where our experiences overlap a bit. The penis=bad, vagina=good ergo people attracted to penis=bad is very prominent among lesbians, forget the penis belonging to a transwoman, if I left a lesbian then dated a cis man or they knew I had had sex that involved penises, I was considered unclean and less than them. Obviously not all lesbians are like this, but wow is there a stigma against bisexual women just because they're attracted to men who are statistically likely to be amab. There's a weird attitude among some lesbians around trans guys and bi women dating too but that's another kettle of fish.

There is definitely an attitude of I want to feel good but don't want to put the effort in to making a partner feel good spread pretty evenly across the genders and sexualities in my experiences. Some treat it as an obligation to give, some will freely give but if you don't react enough or come easily they stop bothering pretty easily (something about as the receiver, performing enough gratitude/enjoyment/making it worth the other person's while? If you're not going to actively enjoy it or even orgasm, why should I bother?). I'm currently dating the only person to straight up ask if they can go down on me for their own fun and that's a bisexual cis man (and the love of my life). Most lgbt people around me have the attitude of "we reciprocate oral in this house" and I don't know that many straight people in my age group well enough to get their opinions, but I found out that there's a deliberate name for people that eat pussy. Got asked if I was a munch, felt ridiculous tbh, as though I was being asked if I was a missionary position.

The oh its unfortunate I'm attracted to men attitude from bisexual women, fuck is that prevalent. I have a colleague getting engaged to a man who is like that. I HATE it. My partner is a man and I love him because he's him and because he's a man I therefore love that he's a man. I've also gotten over my fears and blow him, can confirm it's not gross at all. I don't know if I've ever seen the equivalent amongst bisexual men. Regarding penis=gross or tasting bad, I think some of that collective thought comes from being aware of how poor some men's hygiene is, or how openly unhygienic some are, and the idea of putting your mouth and taste buds on it isn't appealing. Same goes for women, but that idea of vagina=good overrides the truth that for every unhygienic man there is as many unhygienic women.

I think I've covered everything that was percolating in my brain, sorry this is so long it's been a mess of a day and my brain is now soup. Like I said above, no pressure to do anything with this, and please don't think I'm homophobic or transphobic, I just wanted to try convey attitudes around me from a smallish town in 2000-2018

I'm going to put my thoughts under the cut just to keep this post moderately sustainable in length lol

I think you perfectly encapsulated the cultural shift in perceptions of oral sex in your ask. The 2000s-2010s were DOMINATED by the idea that women go down on men and men don't go down on women. There was this undercurrent of emasculation to it, that going down on a woman somehow made you less of a man. I think this also was partially a backlash to the free-love movement in the 70s and even the second wave feminist movement in the 80s because this is also when we see a cultural rise in expectations of shaving among women. And I'm so glad you brought up "hairy butches" because the rise of low-rise jeans in the early 2000s really made body hair taboo.

Suddenly women's bodies become commodified but also absolutely sanitized of anything that makes them human. Of course you don't have to go down on your girlfriend, she's pretty much a blow-up doll in the early 00s. We see this really strange (at least in post 9/11 USA) cultural shift towards women being utterly sexless but also complete whores. There's this fascination with shows like "teen mom" and "16 and pregnant" but at the same time this increasingly widespread cult of purity. Purity rings become popular, abstinence only education is on the rise, teens are allegedly having more sex than ever but no one is telling them anything about it. EVERY GOD DAMN TEEN FOCUSED SHOW INCLUDES A PREGNANCY SUB-PLOT.

Getting off track sorry.

So... women aren't supposed to enjoy sex but they are supposed to be having it, but they also aren't supposed to be having it. You're meant to be the Madonna and the whore. We start seeing jokes about "anal doesn't break your virginity" you know what else doesn't ruin your virginity? Oral. So you can give head as a woman, but only with a man(because icky gross vaginas) and you can't receive head because you're culturally not supposed to enjoy sex or you're a whore.

Which all kicks back in the current sex positivity movement as a huge misunderstanding of the what/why that led to 2000s sex weird-ness and becomes penis=bad vagina=good. This is just blatant transphobia disguised as progressive values tbh, and I'm not going to get into that, but that's what it is.

So now we have this massive reactionary response to early 2000s sexuality. Sucking dick is demeaning because you don't have to do it anymore, men are gross anyway! Anal sex is in but only if you're gay, because being gay is ok now! Cunnilingus is the only acceptable form of oral because women have been denied it for so long (but only from men, we still think lesbians are kind of icky)! Shaving your pubic hair is demeaning because you don't have to do it anymore to be considered attractive (and in fact it's pedophilic for you to enjoy shaving despite being an adult making your own choices about your body)!

Honestly I just want to grab the people I've heard discussing sex like this by the shoulders and ask if they hear themselves, and if they do how do they not understand what they're saying??

There's also STILL this overwhelming culture around virginity!!!! WHO GIVE A SHIT??? Have sex or don't you're not some weird pariah just because you're an x year old virgin, you're just a person RAHHHH

ALSO on the whole Munch thing: munch is an actual kink term for people who derive sexual pleasure from oral sex, as in "This person will come in their pants eating you out." And it's so wild to me that people are using it to mean "you eat out" like yeah but I'm not shooting my load doing it, y'know? I enjoy it but more because I'm bringing my partner pleasure than anything else.

Ok going back to the penis=bad we hate men thing. As a fellow man loving queer yeah it fucking sucks. I love my man, he's great, he's sexy as hell. Fuck, I love dick. And not to get into "Ghoul's problematic identities" but I am a lesbian dating a man, now I do tell people I'm bi these days but I identified as a lesbian for YEARS before I met Mr. Ghoul, and the only reason I even went on a date with him is because my therapist was like "You can't keep letting your trauma dictate your sexuality" like ok go off queen I met the love of my life because of you. BUT The amount of "gold star" lesbians is absolutely appalling. Congrats to you women who have always known you were gay and managed to avoid interacting with men in that way but most people have a little bit of a journey associated with their sexuality and that often includes sex with different people. (Also the way this immediately excludes transwomen from the conversation of lesbianism...)

There is so much hatred around loving men within the gay and straight community, and I don't think it's just a "men need better hygiene" issue, I think it is very much a backlash to the way women were treated in the early 2000s and some hurt feelings that Millennials and Gen Z are still holding onto. In my observation of it I see it very much as an attempt at what was previously called "political lesbianism" that has not actually progressed as far as it did in the 80s because there's still this stigma around lesbianism in straight women. It is, as always, a misunderstanding of how equality works because people have only ever seen things one way. Instead of placing giving head on equal footing for everyone we've gone the opposite direction and flipped from sucking dick is the only thing that happens to eating pussy is the only thing that happens.

There's still too many people seeing sex as something with an implicit power dynamic. People with a penis hold the power, people with vaginas just lay there. Which is just a blatant misunderstanding of what sex is about, but it's easier for people to break things down into easily digestible pieces instead of idk examining why they think(want) the dick to have the power? Like does sex have an implicit power dynamic or do you have a D/s kink?

I'm getting rambly and I don't think I've actually talked about anything, sorry, but I just had so many thoughts reading your ask and I think you phrased everything really well. Really brought a lot of things from the 2000s rushing back to me lol

[hacash]

Here’s why the ‘Ted Lasso needs a confirmed queer/gay character’ posts really piss me off:

If Colin or Trent or whoever makes one throwaway line of having sexual fantasies about a man and nothing else, that would be it. That would be seen as confirmation of being gay, and fandom would run with it. No ‘oh, but that’s just a hint’ or ‘that could be taken as a joke so it doesn’t count’ or ‘we need to see at least six onscreen exes before it’s real’. No-one would need anything more. But when Keeley’s dialogue confirms that she’s attracted to both men and women, that’s not apparently enough. As in real life, so in fandom: saying you’re attracted to multiple genders just ain’t enough to ‘prove’ you’re bi/pan, apparently.

I also hate the suspicion that if Trent or Colin dropped such aforementioned dialogue - or if they came right out with ‘I’m attracted to guys’ - the vast majority of responses are going to be ‘they’re absolutely gay’, and not ‘they could be gay or pan or bi, interesting!’. And if anyone even suggests that the character could be bi or pan instead they’ll be accused of watering down that character’s sexuality. Which is enough to give you all sorts of ick: the idea that monosexuality has to be the default until you have inescapable evidence to the contrary. Because attraction to multiple genders is such an uncomfortable notion that you need inescapable, notarised proof before reluctantly accepting that it could apply to your fav character, apparently?

And finally? I’m so uncomfortable knowing that hate that 99% of those posts say ‘we need a gay character’, not ‘lgbtq+/queer’. Because we already have that. Keeley is attracted to women and men. Ergo Keeley is bi or pan. We have lgbtq+ representation on this show, but that’s not good enough. 

And it’s a reminder that for some people, being bi/pan/ace/whatever is a lesser flavour of queer when only exclusively-same-sex-attraction ‘really counts’. And that sucks.

(nb: this doesn’t include people saying ‘I don’t want just references to a character’s sexuality, I want the show to explore more of their life as a queer person’, because that’s a totally different thing that I’d be 100% in favour of.)

[compacflt]

Okay, so I was re-reading your Slider one-shot for like the twentieth time, and what really struck me (beyond the brilliance of your writing, and the way you’ve presented the disillusionment of growing up, expecting the world to be a certain way, only to realize that life doesn’t quite work out the way you think it will, when you’re seventeen), is the casual sexism just tossed ‘round by our main characters!! :o We have canonical evidence of both Ice and Mav being pretty sexist (what with “the plaque for the alternates is in the ladies’ room” and the downright stalker-ish behavior exhibited by Mav at the O-club…), but it still surprised me a lil’ when twenty-y/o Ice was just like: “The Soviet Union did the impossible and taught women to drive” —and I realized that ah, he truly was born in 1959, or something. There’s little scenes throughout your story where I find myself wondering, which one of them is better, in this sense: When Ice tells Mav that Sarah isn’t talking to him ‘cause of his combat kills, justifies it by saying: “You know how women are”, and Mav tells him all women aren’t the same… I thought that maybe, it was Mav; but then later, Ice shows a distinctive amount of empathy for Juno, sees and respects her for the skilled pilot that she is… and I thought that maybe, it’s Ice after all—he does seem to be more progressive and accepting than Mav, in general? It also made me wonder, that if either of them had been a woman, would they even have respected the other person enough to consider them to be a rival??—or would it have a been a mildly-amusing circus side show for them, to have a female pilot at TOPGUN?

Ty for the ask anon!! ice is more socially progressive than mav yes.

But—maybe this is my experience growing up in one of the bluest counties in Commiefornia and then going to one of the most leftist-coded colleges in one of the most leftist-coded cities in The World; uhh, even if a white man votes D all the time & has professional respect for women/minorities to their faces etc, get him in a room with a bunch of other white men, especially in a masculine and competitive environment like the gym or the navy, and uh. progressive or not, what you get is a lot of “The Soviet Union did the impossible & taught women to drive.”

And it was the 1980s. (As a reminder, in top gun’s 1986, less than 45% of Americans even approved of interracial marriage.) It sucks to say it, but if Ice was making fun of Cougar for quitting the navy cause of his psych issues such as they may be, and openly calling bullshit on Maverick’s MiG story in front of everyone, I am quite confident in saying he Would Not respect a female pilot to her face—if they were the same rank. At the same rank, it’s a competition. All weaknesses, even perceived biological ones, are to be exploited and called to attention. —But, once he’s advanced in rank, proven his own superiority, he’s more inclined to favor a meritocratic “sex doesn’t matter just fly good” attitude, ergo his relationship w/ “Juno” (she’s just a literary symbol to show that Ice may have respect for other minorities in the Navy “your career speaks for itself” but NOT FOR HIMSELF as a closeted man). This “who cares about gender/race just fly good” attitude is probably where 50s+ Maverick lands too, which is why no issues with Phoenix.

but jesus GOD maverick is a sexist in the original Top Gun. That’s why I wrote the prologue to WWGATTAI—a part of me definitely believes both he and Ice are definitively queer, but a part of me also wonders, are they just also conditioned to dismiss women as intellectual/societal equals because of their time in the 1980s male-dominated Navy? CAN they really only have a truly equal relationship with another man? I have no idea what my Ice’s sexual orientation is for exactly this reason. Yes, he’s functionally gay by the end of it, and that’s what I keep calling him—but sexuality is fluid & complicated. It’s definitely more-than possible he’s mostly straight and it’s just the circumstances of his wildly intense trauma-bond relationship with Maverick that led to their relationship as I wrote it. If you don’t LIKE/understand/respect women, and only feel at home/excited by committing acts of male-typified violence with the few men you respect, how does that bend your definition of the word straight? ...its still straight, but only straight-ish!

not to take it a step further, but WHY ELSE is canon maverick single in TGM? he canonically can’t make it work with women until he retires from the navy!!! he doesnt know how!!! His military environment is not conducive to normal long-term relationships with civilian women!!!

[adamsvanrhijn]

ppl are generally ignorant of how ppl used to view sexuality like any time before 1990. i always think of how the actor michael redgrave told his wife he was gay before they were married and her reaction was along the lines of “oh it’s alright it doesn’t matter to me, i love you anyway.” people have always married for different reasons and especially then

this is such a good anecdote, thank you for sharing!! to be honest i think at this point it's even before like, 2010, especially where this is concerned... i see young people in the USA & other countries that had a turning tide around legalization of same sex marriage in the late 2000s & in the 2010s that Reallyyyy do not Get It... it is so extremely recent that there is even remotely a socially sanctioned option for long term stability with a known same-sex romantic partner without limiting opportunities in work, education, family, etc (and even then that's not always the case now). and there are aspects of life that some people do not want to pursue unless they have stable social sanction, and having children is a huge one of them.

in oscar's case in particular, one thing i think people love to forget is that for decades if not centuries plenty of solidly 100% heterosexual men have married specifically and only because they needed to have legitimate children with no interest in cultivating a love relationship with their spouse and who never bothered to then do that

and people have so many cultural hangups about arranged marriages and arranged marriages to being in love For Real such that i think they ascribe that motivation and that narrative where historically it didn't necessarily exist. in the real world there is no inherent potential for real true love every time you put a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman together. the potential there is imaginary, so the loss of it when you replace the straight man with a gay one is also imaginary.

frankly, oscar himself is in the category of people who want marriage to be a specific fairy tale thing that isn't realistic for most people... if his only criteria were children, he could get married very shortly after putting his mind to it, but it needs to be perfect for it to be mentally bearable for him and it needs to satisfy his need for wealth and status; he has too many things he is trying to make marriage Be & his expectations about what it will do for him are too high.

but one of the things he does clearly express wanting, which is a family, regardless of his reasons for wanting it, is very attainable on its own & completely understandably so (to me), so it's Very Interesting that the hill some people have chosen to die on is that oscar wouldn't Give His Wife Children and ergo his hypothetical wife will suffer forever - which also takes agency from hypothetical wife, too. people are pretending they care about what hypothetical wife wants but they mainly care about dragging oscar so they forget that a woman can have motivations in life, including in private life, other than "marry my true love man and have ten of his true love babies because we have true love sex every night" .

[noahs-blue-jeans]

A little point i want to make and a feeling ive got in me bones

Spoilers for Arcane below

I think that the way Arcane ended, and was as a show entirely, points to Byler and more queerness in ST. Yes ive harped about Arcane before but here me out: Arcane is also hugely popular. It may not be their tentpole show but it has a sizeable dedicated fanbase thats associated with a very popular video game.

Arcane received tons of accolades and huge praise (also a better written show than ST imo), and while i dont have the hard evidence for this, i do at least think that the success of Arcane might have paved the way for ST to be more queer and for Byler to happen.

Arcane Season 2 canonizes its own slow burn lesbian ship that culminates in a very well done sex scene (i do not think Will or Mike are gonna eat each other out lol, but they may have a scene of some sort). The gay male ship of the show, while not having explicit sensual or sexual moments, is riddled with romantic love that ends with THE SHIP BECOMING COSMIC TOGETHER. Gay man here: its just as gay to become one with the cosmos as it is to have butt sex.

And the show is still huge, its getting a new season/spinoff, hell i could see it winning an emmy! i dont care about awards but studios do.

My point, again, is that Netflix is hopefully aware that even an explicitly queer show can be popular. I want to be hopeful and WILL be hopeful that ST gets that same acceptance, in part because Byler isn’t gonna be as graphic, ergo not as much of a turn off to audiences.

[trans-axolotl]

If you looked into it, the term Salmacian comes from the sex-transforming Salmacis Spring of mythology. This predates the interpretation of the myth wrote by Ovid, that has the rape. Others myths describe Salmacis as a nurse who take care of the infant Hermaphroditus. You can find the reference to the spring on the salmacian website. From salmacian.org: The flag’s central emblem, the “Sign of Salmacis”, consists of a lowercase sigma for “salmacian”, with waves to represent the sex-transforming Salmacis Spring of mythology.

okay so. unfortunately i read ancient greek and latin and spent quite a bit of time a couple years ago reading everything i could about hermaphroditus. normally i wouldn't bother to continue this conversation but i just got way too into relooking over old translations lmfao. putting this under the cut because it's too long. but long story short for followers who don't want to read the whole thing is that i think this is a really bad faith response that misrepresents the myths and fails to understand the reason why this term feels particularly insensitive to intersex people.

yes, there were other myths before Ovid, and the Salmacis spring was thought to have powers before he wrote the Metamorphoses. the Greek transcription at the spring from 2 B.C.E is a part of a larger poem that's answering the question "What is so honored about Halicarnussus?", and this version of the myth has Salmacis raising Hermaphroditus as a child and then marrying him. there's some really interesting analysis done there, actually, looking at how the the Hermaphroditus & Salmacis story is inserted into this larger epigraph that is largely about colonization, and connecting the promotion of marriage in that version of the myth as a function of propaganda around "civilized" values.

I also would almost hesitate to label the spring as "sex transforming," in the earliest conceptions of this myth--most of the earliest literature says that the water will turn people mollis, impudicus, obscenus, and μαλακός, all of which are words that are being used in a mostly derogatory fashion and could be translated similar to "effeminate" and have sexual, specifically gay undertones. the powers of the spring are more interpreted as making people gay (and specifically in some contexts, making people a bottom), rather than necessarily transforming sex as we think about it today.

Ovid's version of the myth, written in Metamorphoses 4, is the more popular and widespread version of the myth. The sex transforming powers of the spring cannot be separated from the violent rape in this myth: the reason the spring is thought to have sex transforming powers is because Hermaphroditus asked his parents to make everyone who bathed in the spring "half a man (semivir)" like him:

Ergo ubi se liquidas, quo vir descenderat, undas               380 semimarem fecisse videt mollitaque in illis membra, manus tendens, sed iam non voce virili Hermaphroditus ait: "nato date munera vestro, et pater et genetrix, amborum nomen habenti: quisquis in hos fontes vir venerit, exeat inde               385 semivir et tactis subito mollescat in undis!" motus uterque parens nati rata verba biformis fecit et incesto fontem medicamine tinxit.'

i think it is a more fair reading here to say that the spring has sex transforming powers-- I've made the argument before in regards to some other translations that there are some instances where "intersex" might be an appropriate translation of "semivir" (mostly alongside the context of castrati and analyzing how castration narratives are sometimes intersex narratives in Latin, but that's not really the point.) The spring gets powers by the request of Hermaphroditus, and this passage is often translated as a curse from Hermaphroditus to demonstrate his anger at the rape and subsequent merge of bodies. It is much more explicit in this version that this is about transformation of biological sex, although it can still also carry connotations about homosexuality, effeminacy, etc.

anyway. when were are analyzing greek and roman myths, i really don't think it is useful to pretend like there is just one version of the myth, or act like the first version of the myth to get written down is the "correct" version of the myth. engaging with greek and roman myths requires us to engage with multiple and conflicting myths, and isn't just about analyzing the content--it is also about analyzing the author, the audience, the purpose, and the cultural context it is written in. I think that it can be helpful to compare and contrast different versions, understand why priorities differ between generations, what that says about what values people wanted to represent, the sociopolitical context it's written in, etc. and i think that in the context of creating terminology to be used and understood by a modern audience, we also need to consider the context by which myths are read and interpreted currently--what myths people would be familiar with, what myths people would find if they googled, what greek and latin language signifies to people, and what values about sex and gender are present in our current cultural context.

what message does it tell intersex people when the language you use is intimately intertwined with a myth that includes violent rape of an intersex person? what message does it send to intersex people when this myth is directly connected to how we are still understood by society, and the slurs that people use to describe us?

the term "salmacian" is directly engaging with the Salmacis myths, which means that it is engaging with Ovid's Salmacis myth--you google Salmacis and you are going to see Ovid's version alongside others. and i think that anchoring this term in this Greek mythology in the first place has placed salmacian in dialogue with the word hermaphrodite. Which is also one of my complaints with the term, honestly, because the nuances of hermaphrodite as a slur that we sometimes reclaim is not comparable to the dyadic experience with salmacian.

when you use the term salmacian and use it as a reference to greek myth, you are symbolizing a collection of myths that includes a story about a violent rape of an intersex person, and then taking the name of their rapist. as a dyadic person you might feel able to ignore that and pick the versions of the myth you like best. as an intersex person i do not feel able to do that, especially when so much of our community activism is tied to our sexual trauma. especially when the term hermaphrodite carries such a painful history with it, and those myths are where that came from.

anyway. again. like i said in the beginning this is not a term used widely enough for me to feel like it is that important and i don't generally go through life doing in depth analysis of every word that i see lmfao. but if you're going to bring mythology into this dialogue then i will delve into it, because i think it's worth understanding the societal space that hermaphrodite takes up and the reasons why intersex people might feel incredibly uncomfortable with the word salmacian, regardless of which myths you personally like better.

[selfmademen]

Hey I would like some advice please. I consider myself an inclusive trans gay man. Emphasis on gay. I do not identify as bisexual at all, and have never been attracted to women. My very debate happy friend asked me to look at some vids of people and say how attracted I was. Ok. Well it turns out a LOT of the people I said I was attracted to could be proven to identify as women, all amab and usually trans women oddly none of the afab non-binary or afab very gnc women. My friend then says “ok so you see, EITHER sexual orientation is based on sex, and you are attracted to amabs only” (which admittedly is the pattern 😣) OR you are bisexual for being attracted to cis men, trans women and amab nb/queer. I just don’t know what to say. I am not bi. But I am attracted to trans women unless they pass 100% and even then if I know they still have a cock, I’m kinda interested. But then to say that feels transphobic. How can I articulate my sexuality in an honest but inclusive way?

I'll be honest, there's a whole lot to unpack there and I dont think I can unpack it for you. Your identify is entirely your own so I say identify how you want. For me, I'm queer. If I'm asked to define it further, I'm attracted to masculinity - which means I'm attracted to men and also tend to be attracted to butch women and butch nb folk.

I a) don't think your friend has your best interests at heart and is just a shit stirrer and b) think you should maybe re-evaluate how you think about trans women.

I guess the thing to ask yourself is "am I attracted to this woman as a woman, or am I attracted to these specific traits that I am internally identifying as masculine?" and then acknowledging the fact that if it's the latter, maybe you need to work on that a little. The other thing is - why does your sexuality need to be inclusive? You've expressed that you are a gay man. Ergo, you are a gay man (I am assuming a trans man given the way you worded this but you may have meant 'trans inclusive gay man' idk). Are you saying you want to be *trans inclusive* in your sexuality? Because again, what does that mean to you?

Another point to consider: were you attracted to them or did you find them attractive? Because there IS a difference. I can acknowledge and find people attractive and recognise attractive traits without being sexually attracted to them. This is distinction you can make.

At the end of the day, no one is owed an explanation for your sexuality.

[davekat-sucks]

"Fun fact" Anon here!

Wow you misunderstood what I was saying so much it's actually kind of impressive. No prob tho, I'd just like to clarify by explaining a bit slower, because I do think the whole thing is fun. In case it needs to be said, my initial ask was partially a response to this anon:

"Idk if this is an unpopular opinion but it annoys me when trolls use the word gay or any kind of LGBT-type language when none of the have a historical or societal context of any of those concepts or words, they think the distinction of sexualities is silly, they wouldn't understand using gay as an insult or a term of endearment, fucking stop it."

What I was saying is that this anon is both right and wrong. Because of a flaw in homestuck's writing, it ends up contradicting itself in such a way that Alternia is implied to have at least the concepts of distinct sexualities one moment, and then not have them the next. I consider that a "fun fact" because sometimes it's fun peeking behind the curtain of how things are written. Like knowing how Tolkien's misspelling of dwarfs as dwarves resulted in the ability to copyright the misspelling. Mistakes happen, and then they result in a distinct identity.

I think it'd be more useful for us to stop thinking and interacting with Alternia as a real place that's being explained to us linearly, and appreciate it as a construct of fiction that's being written linearly. Alternia is innately full of contradiction because it is written that way, sometimes by mistake and but also by purpose. From a writing perspective, if you base an alien society off of your own, it will always be skewed in weird ways informed by your own biases, our reality that we take for granted. In Homestuck's case, Alternia is alternative earth in the many ways the the writer doesn't bother to change, but also differentiated by the ways it does change. It can be intentional or unintentional, but both become canon once they're written and published each update.

Now, the flaw in the writing is because, again, Alternia is a place written, not one that exists and is being described with all factors about itself already known. I bring up the order of pages because that is the order of how the fiction is written and presented. Homestuck is a nonlinear story in which outlines are written ahead of time, so it can organize its nonlinear storytelling, but the writing in the pages themselves are written fairly linearly. In writing we call this macro (outline) and micro (the things like sentences and paragraphs). There's a joke about this in the Simpsons, where Lisa questions how a hamster can write mystery novels, and the answer is that he writes the ending first and works backwards. But that only works in the outline, which can be done in any order. Few people write micro backwards, because it's hard to write the end of sentence before you know the start, it's just not how we do grammar. That's something that the aliens from Arrival (2016) could do.

In hivebent, the micro writing of individual pages are being written with the bias that since Alternia is based on earth, they would naturally have concepts of sexuality as much as they have the concept of gender. Even though Alternia is meant to be very very different, the presence of sexuality and gender are just taken as granted because it's like Earth. Kanaya is initially written to be gay. Feferi is initially written to be straight, and her going out the way to mention same sex attraction implies that this would be in some way the more tolerant option, which wouldn't be necessary if Alternia didn't have distinct sexualities, ergo, it does (at that point). The decision to make Alternia not like Earth in that way just hasn't been made yet.

And then, by coincidence Future Arachnids Grip happens. It's not so vital a joke as to be planned out in advance, but who on earth can ignore all caps FAG when it comes up? It also raises the opportunity for a joke, an opportunity which is swiftly and mindlessly taken in the moment. To continue establishing the trolls as alien, this thing that stands out to the audience is treated as a big whatever by Karkat. The contents of pages a hundred pages ago aren't being factored in or considered. But now, so many pages after trolls having sexualities is established, we're establishing that fag isn't a slur on alternia. Because yeah that's a funny little joke, but the decision to make it retroactively changes the world building which was once just taken as being the same as earth to being one of the things different from earth.

So whoopsie, like so many writers do, you accidentally contradicted yourself. It happens, but now the writing is set in stone, and you just have to start working on the outline of the next Act. The next act being Act 5 Act 2. The Act 5 Act 2 that starts out with Karkat and John's conversation that settles the contradiction and sides with the later joke, because that is the funnier of the two options. The explanation is diegetically addressed to John, but it is exposition to the audience, in case anyone remembers the whole deal those many pages ago.

And btw, the "Not homophobic parent" is the trope of a parent trying to awkwardly indicate that they're totally cool if you're gay by, well, doing exactly as Feferi did and adding the idea of same sex attraction on at the end them asking if you have a gf/bf. Tbh, I think if you don't know what that is, or are at least able to use context clues to take a guess, it makes me question why you so often commentate on LGBTQ+ stuff. Because no offense, it seems you aren't proficient enough in the most basic of concepts to speak so critically. If you didn't know what it is, that's really the kind of thing you ought be reading the comic for, to better understand certain LGBTQ+ experiences.

It's because some of the context behind it isn't fully related to LGBT type of themes. Most of it is based on projection. Feferi's condescending (get it ha) to people like Eridan shouldn't be that read that deep. It's just reaching at this point. At best for Feferi's arc if Hussie didn't treat her like shit, is that she accepts that Sollux left her for Feferi, Eridan is shit (no duh), and none of her other friends like Karkat, Kanaya, or Terezi gave a shit about her death and only found solace in Nepeta because of their mind fused together as a kernelsprite. It's not so much about romance as it is just that Feferi had been surrounded by shitty people and needs to associated with better ones she can trust. Slurs do exist, but in the form for things like race, not sexuality. Like how Mituna called Meenah a 'chumbucket' and 'wader' in Openbound. There probably is something equivalent to the N-word in Alternia. But nobody knows what it could be and the fandom is too scared to try and come up with one. Unless Chumbucket or Wader is the actual N-word for sea dweller trolls. Cause then that means Mituna just called Meenah a damn dirty nigga Part of Alternia's messy worldbuilding is because Hussie likes to make shit up on the fly if he thinks it is funny or awesome. That's why we even have the description of the classes for the aspects being so freaking short because Andrew Hussie didn't think much through. I also would never think Alternia is an alternative Earth. That stuff from their world should never be practiced in real life. From hemospectrum and of course, quadrants. The writing makes it a point how fucked up it is and how accepting and normalized it is within the troll group. Them playing Sgrub is trying to teach them how to move on from such beliefs and move on to build a new world on their own without it. Not like twelve trolls ruling over humans would be any better, but it's not as worse as Sea Queen Hitler and the shit she did to Earth. Is there a fanventure or fanfic that explores the Beta Trolls actually reaching their goal after Sgrub and took over Earth? I wanna see that. The John and Karkat moment was also meant to be as a joke as well to tell the audiences it WAS a joke that Karkat purposely called Vriska a FAG with no remorse. John and Karkat being mouthpieces and examples to tell that whoever was angry when that joke happened pages ago, can go fuck themselves. Most of jokes in Homestuck is made to say "fuck you" to the audiences to get a reaction out of anybody.

[thelesbianpoirot]

If a gay man and a lesbian woman are kissing..... That just means they're both lying about their sexuality. Heterosexual and liars! It's that simple. And anyone claiming they have friends who do that, they're either lying or being lied to. Let's be for real for a second.

Friends can kiss, but they aren't talking about friendship kissing, they are never talking about lesbian and gay men being friends and being close. In many cultures friends and family kiss. They are always talking about sexual relationships between gay men and lesbians being gay, like honey they are still men and women, ergo that was a het sexual interaction, it is like they consider gay and lesbians as gender identifies all on their own. They can't be real, the delusions and fantasy of being gay adjacent yet never having or wanting same sex relationships is so rampant. it was my biggest turn off with tumblr transexuals, like very few are gay, unlike a homosexual/bi you may meet irl with genuine gender dysphoria, it is just a subculture here, like goth or emo, everyone is QUEER. GO DO DRUGS IN A WAREHOUSE and stop this nonsense!

[xtrablak674]

DANIELKITTYVIOLETA: This has a filter, right? The glans can't be brown, can it?

trevor-brown-artist: Maybe you're not getting enough brown dick in your diet... #🍆

DANIELKITTYVIOLETA: Skinny, it was an anatomical question, it wasn't for you to send me to have gay sex, clown.

trevor-brown-artist: Its curious how you took the comment. No one inferred anything. You're asking a very race-based question, which if you did interact with more Black people you would understand, and furthermore understand how inappropriate your question was.

I stopped arguing with folks online years ago, I realized you're never going to ever change anyone's mind if they're really set in their ways. It was an exercise in futility, and I was so happy I had finally learned that lesson and stopped getting my blood pressure up over some bullshit argument on some thread on the interwebs.

The ridiculousness of this comment had me in a silly mood, where I decided to actually respond. Maybe this wasn't the wisest choice, and I should have stuck to my policy of non-response, but it is what it is. I stand by what I said there is no inference in my comment at all. You could be a straight jock and have a lot of men of color team mates that you have seen in various states of undress, and you would soon learn that brown skin has various colors and textures depending on where it is on the body and the lighting of the environment.

Usually genitals, nipples, knees, elbows and sometimes knuckles can be darker. Depending on the climate they live in and how much sun exposure they get. The complexion of the face can vary from the rest of the body based on the same things, and then there is the very unique coloring of hands and soles on most people of color, which is still something I don't quite completely understand.

When I first saw the comment I went to his page and reviewed the photos of his genitals which were also not consistently colored, and giggled to myself because uncircumcised penises have different types of colors and textures than circumcised penises and albeit I am queer, I am sure medical professionals know about this also this isn't some huge revelation. Most importantly his comment attempts to "other" brown skin, and positions whyte skin the default. I have no need to participate in my own othering, and I am going to push back on his overt ignorance.

Ergo his question is inappropriate, if he had more Black people in his life and if he took a moment to actually look at them closely he would notice how based on complexion and even age how different their skin is in different areas of the body, and that has nothing to do with whether you're a homosexual or not. That is being a curious human being who hasn't place himself and those who look like him at the center of the universe as far as how human bodies are supposed to look and behave.

His response is also laced with homophobia, whether he is gay or not is irrelevant to his lacking understanding of how brown bodies are or aren't and how light plays across the different areas of the body particularly in photographs. Since I am not other, I feel no responsibility to explain the genetics of brown skin and discuss light theory with someone who is so clearly lacking in his perceptions of the world around him.

The core of my response is humor, nothing else. His response was an attack, it was defensive and it was clearly homo-antagonistic. Its because of these kind of dynamics why I generally don't even as much as respond to comments on anything anymore. Its really not worth it, he's not going to see anything wrong with his question and how it reflects his personal ignorance, how it 'others' me and my body, nor will he recognize my humor, because he doesn't know me, he doesn't know my work and he obviously doesn't know my playful personality.

The sad thing about the internet it was really a wonderful experiment in sociology, its such a shame it was a major failure in making connections between individuals. The fact that studies are showing that people are feeling more and more isolated seems to have a direct correlation to the 'success' of the internet and how pervasive its has become in all of our lives. I wish I had something wise or profound to say about it all, but I don't. I just wish folks had the ability to see the impacts of the thing they say and how they say them, because maybe they would take a moment before responding with the first things that come into their heads.

[Photo by Brown Estate]