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thumperdaetime · 6 months ago

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A Gentle Reminder:

if you feel like you're spinning your wheels, and stuck doom scrolling this week -due to the current political landscape. I highly recommend logging off for a bit and seeing if you have the stomach to call a loved one who has political veiws that clash with your own.

social media and news coverage is fantastic for getting info out to people who want to listen, but it is an ineffective tool for actually communicating with people you disagree with.

I'm not a people-scientist but every time i see "yelling at each other online doesn't actually help" and have the energy to look into What does actually help, experts always say that it's empathetic, long term relationships between people that disagree.

so if you have a bunch of nervous political energy and no clearly helpful place to put it right now:

go call your grandmother. talk about the weather, and the way you miss her cooking. give her a real living person to picture The next time a newscaster talks about the radical-left-mob. if you talk to her regularly consider asking what she thinks about the recent political thing. you're not there to debate or prove her wrong or even change her mind. just listen to someone you love confess their fears, and then share your own fears. you are probably actually on the same side when you get down to it. you both want a safe place to live and the people you love to be happy, (most people do) its just you dont agree about how to go about that.

text your little cousin a random meme, when they send back a thing about how voting is a scam, let it go. share a vine to find out if they know the deep lore. make plans to meet up and play whatever video game they're obsessed with right now. and if the vibe is right and its not going to become an argument, try talking a bit about why the whole not voting movement scares you. don't talk down to them, talk like your two friends who respect each other's opinion (Thats The whole goal actually) ask them why they think its a good strategy, collaborate on other activist things you can do together. included them in your politics instead of dismissing their points.

and its not easy, as wild as it is to think about having a deep but pleasant conversation with your worst Uncle. the fact remains that Your Problematic & Uncle is much more likely to speak up for gay rights. if you can get to a place where you enjoy each others company, and you feel safe talking to him about your struggles as a queer person. and to be fair, you are more likely to take into account the effects of a gun ban on the local wildlife balance, if you sit through your Problematic Uncle complaining about how local restrictions made deer season hard to do last year, and now the tic population is up and the food banks are empty.

divide and conquer is a long standing tactical strategy. and we have seen that fascist in particular like to divide people into a hierarchy of ""real people""" and an ""inhuman enemy"" . when we let their rhetoric turn our peers and neighbors into an inhuman enemy, we can loose sight of what we should actually be fighting for and against.

and if you spend all your time yelling at Doug Nobody who was taking an angry shit when you were typing out that essay, you take energy away from the real fight (the systems and actual active oppressors). the best way to stop that tactic is by standing together with people outside of the box you've been assigned (as much as ethically possible). and refusing to let the system make you perpetuate usless infighting.

When we let the political fandom (yes i mean the media made around politics and not actual political action) act as a wedge between us and people who could have been in our lives, we end up with weaker support groups and less per review for political ideas. it is easy to believe Q-anon if the only people you talk to believe in Q-anon. the same way it is easy to believe that Taylor Swift is a lesbian if everyone you talk to believes Taylor Swift is a lesbian. sometimes we need a person to stop and say "wait, can you run that idea by me again? it doesn't fit my perception of reality"

and Yes. it is probably unlikely at this point to convince someone who has voted one way their whole life to change their political views before November. but that doesn't mean we dont reach-out ever. there will still be politics in September and October, you will still need a diverse support group, and people you trust to bounce political ideas off of. and if you are as worried as i am about this upcoming election, it is very possible that having a community of people who are okay with working together despite political differences will be very helpful in the coming years. (and holding a meaningful, satisfying conversation with someone you disagree with on a fundamental issue is a huge skill to have if you want to take part in alot of activism, community building, or family gatherings)

a quick list of things Op is NOT Saying in this post:

it is your duty and responsibility to do this thing and you're a bad person for not doing it.

this is really easy and everyone should be able (and willing) to take on the emotional energy needed to do this for everyone they know who doesn't agree with them.

watching news or being on social media doesn't help anything.

this is the best way to help and there are no other things you should be doing with your time/energy.

the conversations will be pleasant and/or will always have a positive outcome.

any beliefs i listed together are some how morally equivalent.

you should compromise your beliefs for the sake of getting along with others.

the best answer is most likely centrist because both sides are extremists.

voting this one time will fix all of the things and you're evil if you are conflicted about it.

voting is the best way for a single individual to enact change in their country.

i love the president, and the candidates, and the voting system, and the two parties, and the electoral college, and the bombs, and the genocide and all the death and corruption and violence its all holding up and being held up by.

we should listen to "both sides" to get a fair and balanced picture of the issue

we should let nazis, and bigots, and fascist talk openly about their ideas openly as if its not hate speech calling for violence against marginalized people.

you Have to go reconnect with your abusers and toxic relationships from your past in the hopes you can convince them to vote correctly.

the current political thing that made me make this post is The Most Important Thing!!! that has ever happened in the whole world over all of written history, and we should all be talking about it for forever, otherwise you're helping the inhuman enemy!!!

things are already fucked so theirs no point in trying to get enough votes.

things will be fine and ok if nothing changes and we just keep on this projected path forward.

i know so much and am so smart and I've solved political discourse and if only everyone listened to me we would have world peace already.

Taylor Swift is a wlw

things I am saying. now. here. at the end of the post:

be kind. go look at the sky. i love you <3

#politics #usa politics #us presidents #2024 presidential race #joe biden #donald trump

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cr1mson5returns · 1 year ago

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Unpublished Excerpt: Leaving Catholicism Over Identity

Consider that you have an immutable, inherent quality about you that impacts everything about how you see the world, how you relate to others, and even how you relate to yourself. It can’t be wished away, it can’t be ignored, and it comes out at the most inopportune times when others feel inclined to judge and ridicule and make light of you over it. When you think about the future, it’s shaped by this quality; when you think about the past, it’s always been there, even if you couldn’t see it at first. You never chose this quality–indeed, it came to you quite like a personality trait or a cat dander allergy–but people insist that you can just not do the thing and that you should, in fact, not do the thing so that your eternal soul doesn’t suffer in flames forever. In all of this, you’re left wondering why it had to be you when you tried so hard to be good, to be something else, and yet it never worked. You could never shake that quality that left you so outside the norm, so outcast and othered. You wonder, silently, sincerely, if God even hears you when you cry out. You wonder most of all if everyone else is right about you.

This is what it feels like to be gay in a non-affirming church community. This is what drove me away from the Catholic religion. It wasn’t a desire to do bad things with no consequences, or a desire to rebel against my family, or any of those tropes. It was a sincere search of my soul in which I realized that I couldn’t just not be a lesbian, that I couldn’t just wish away all the parts of me that longed for the touch of a woman. I had tried for so long to be interested in men, I had struggled for years to just fake it until I made it, and I had to realize that it just wasn’t possible. Maybe other people could find a way to ignore some piece of themselves, but for me, it was immutable. It was non-negotiable. It was also something that, evidently, qualified me as worthy of eternal damnation unless I followed a very specific set of rules that nobody else had to follow.

I understand very well that life isn’t fair. Two suicide attempts and many years of non-suicidal self-injury taught me that life doesn’t grind to a halt just because you want it to, just because you can’t take it anymore. But something in me protested at the thought of being celibate forever. I wanted companionship like everyone else had the opportunity to have, I wanted to be with someone I loved and who loved me in return, and I was supposed to believe that was…what, sinful? That it was a disordered desire in the eyes of the Catholic Church? I couldn’t hack it. It wasn’t an issue of sin; it was an issue of being able to live with myself.

I’m also quite familiar with the red letters in Matthew 16:24 that read, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” It seems pretty simple from the outside, doesn’t it? Every good Christian has to deny their flesh; every good Christian has to take up their cross, and homosexuality is yours! But the unfairness sunk in, and the lack of compassion, and the true misunderstanding. I could deny my flesh for things that actually hurt me–and I know that because I had done it every single time I ever thought about taking a razor to my skin just to prove how worthless I really was. But wanting to feel loved, wanting to give that love in every possible way, wanting to grow old with a woman who cared about me…did that hurt anyone, least of all me?

Sure, there’s also the whole thing about sexuality existing for procreation. But nobody was stopping infertile straight people from getting married. Nobody was revoking the marriage licenses of couples who sought out fertility treatment, or adopted, or went childless because of the struggle. Besides, why was the sex I was having or not having the dominant point of the conversation, anyway? The thing about being gay is that it’s not just about who you want to bang; it’s about who you want to spend your life with, who you love, who brings you joy and receives the joy you put out into the world.

I had tried so hard to be anything other than homosexual. I really did. But it wasn’t happening, and it wasn’t happening because it wasn’t possible. Maybe other people could watch a piece of themselves wither away in hopelessness and be fine with it, but I couldn’t. Is that so sinful in the end?

#cr1mson's writing #writing sample #unpublished excerpt #lesbian #ex catholic #religious trauma #ex christian

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tabbbywright · 10 months ago

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Having a rare moment where I can string multiple thoughts together and those thoughts are about: Utena.

I have to say, as someone who picked up Utena because I heard it was Lesbians, and who loves it in part because the WLW content speaks to me, A Lesbian... Sometimes I am bothered by the fact that Utena is so often boiled down to being A Lesbian Media.

Like for one, that's not the entire show, but more importantly: people are bizarrely shitty about takes that go against the idea that Utena is A Lesbian Media. Like there's this weird idea that lesbians own this because of some Ikuhara interview from 20 years ago and I'm like ??????????? what the fuck are you on about??

So in this post: Tabby has various complaints about various takes and attitudes she's seen over the years with regards to this. Prepare for this to be a bit disjointed.

Honestly, I think people being weirdly possessive is more of a recent thing but my sense of time is bad.

tfw ppl are bizarrely invested in the label a cartoon character would use for her sexual orientation

So first and foremost: Utena is a cartoon character who never explicitly states her sexual orientation and Ikuhara saying that he wanted to portray Anthy and Utena as having something "like a lesbian relationship" in a translated interview does not mean Utena is a lesbian and cannot be interpreted in any other way.

It boggles my mind that people have gotten so weird about this? Like if you say you read Utena as being bi or w/e, you're Wrong and Why Won't You Let The Lesbians Have This. Like, I literally saw these takes when the Empty Movement twitter said something in this vein, and got QRT'd to hell and back by a bunch of people INSISTING that it is INCORRECT to read Utena, a cartoon character with no canonly stated sexuality, as anything other than a lesbian.

It is ABSURD that people behaved this way. It's absurd that people cite that Ikuhara interview as gospel. It is PARTICULARLY absurd that people will post shit like "WHY CAN'T YOU LET THE LESBIANS HAVE OUR LESBIAN REP" like ??????? what in the fuck are you ON about. You can interpret Utena as being a lesbian all you want, and I can still read Utena as being bi. I can read Utena as being bi, and you can still read her as being gay. In typing this, I have not taken Utena away from anyone--how COULD I? Even if I know a bunch of people who read her as bi, how does that STOP you from reading her as being gay???

It doesn't!

See normally if you're not a ridiculous person, if someone has an interpretation that contradicts yours for a story, even if you don't agree... you just go "oh ok" and idk get over it? If there's anything to get over in the first place? If someone says to ME "Personally, I read Utena as being a lesbian." my whole ass response is "Oh that's fair."

But because Utena has become A Lesbian Media, apparently a non zero number of people find "I interpret Utena as being bisexual" to be a Crime Against Lesbians or some shit??

On the topic of Ruka Tsuchiya

CW: talking about the concept of corrective rape, etc

So before I get into this, I'd like to reiterate that my interpretation of this show does not negate YOUR interpretation of this show. Like, I can think you are wrong and you can think I'm wrong, right? Right.

So something I've seen occasionally is the idea that Ruka kissing Jury was... an attempt at making her NOT a lesbian? That his actions were in the vein of corrective rape? And honestly this is the (second) most mind boggling thing I've ever heard??????

I legitimately do not understand how people land on this outside of the fact that he is a dude forcing a kiss on a woman who is in love with another woman. Like yes, that was bad, no shit... but to assume that the intention behind the kiss was to make her STRAIGHT is ascribing a lot of intent to his actions that is simply not there? Like, I've watched this show three times and have yet to spot the part that even remotely suggests that he thinks it's bad that she's in love with a woman vs his problem being with Shiori.

In the scene where Ruka kisses Jury, he's trying to get under her skin, and IMO he is PRIMARILY operating with the mindset of "Jury, I know you're in love with Shiori, but you shouldn't be. She sucks! She really sucks! She is manipulative and a liar and you should really get over her."

And listen: I LOVE Shiori. She's a great character! But I love her in part because she can be quite terrible! If a friend of mine was clearly in love with someone who was CLEARLY TOXIC AS HELL I would not kiss them but I WOULD be like "hey uh you know your crush sucks right?"

So when I see this take that says "Ruka assaulted Jury because he wants her to not be a LESBIAN" I can only assume that people landed on this conclusion because to them, Jury Being A Lesbian is THAT ingrained into the show for them, because this is a Show About Lesbians or something.

But a kiss in itself is simply an action. Alone, it doesn't have any specific meaning. People kiss because of attraction, sure, but sometimes it's an impulse. Sometimes a kiss says "I love you" and sometimes it just means "I like you enough to put my mouth on yours."

When Ruka kisses Jury, I don't think he's doing it because he wants her to be straight. Hell, I think he does have a crush on her but I don't think his intent is "make my crush straight, for me or otherwise," I think he does it because it'll let him get close enough to her to steal the locket AND piss her off. It is a shitty thing to do, duh, but to say his intent was akin to corrective rape is ascribing an intent to his actions that is simply not there!

Why are you so mad about this

I'm mad because Utena is one of my favorite shows IN PART because it is a story with a lot of room for interpretation, and when people boil it down to just being About Lesbians, you're ignoring like 40% of the show, and oversimplifying a lot of it! Like the Ruka thing only makes sense if you operate under the assumption that Ruka thinks Jury is a lesbian and like... does he? Or does he just know that she's in love with a woman? You can be in love with a woman and not be a lesbian!

Utena is an incredible show that yes, is PRIMARILY about a queer woman and her relationship with another queer woman but there is more to it. There is more to it, and it is not a show that The Lesbians own just because you can interpret Utena as being a lesbian.

If anyone actually read this: ty for ur time while I hopped on my soapbox.

#rambling #utena

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vintage-bentley · 11 months ago

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Fandom also finally led me to terfdom as well. Not the GO fandom but still.

I’m not surprised, they’re so ridiculously homophobic and sexist that it’s hard not to stop and question things.

For me, I remember being introduced to what radfems actually believe (instead of what the TQ+ community claims they believe) while searching the makeup critical tags. Because turns out, radfems were the only ones posting things that echoed my experience of being pressured and expected to wear makeup. Then I think I started to lose faith in the whole concept of gender identity, mostly because I was starting to see how ridiculous and offensive the idea of heterosexuals calling themselves gay/lesbian/homosexual is.’ Basically just having little questions pop up in my head and finding out that radfems were the only ones with answers that made sense.

But fandom was what sort of pushed me over the edge, I think, because it’s where people go to let loose. It’s where people let their fantasies run wild. So everything you see in fandom, is the product of people’s wildest dreams. And I was seeing so much homophobia and sexism, making it clear to me that many people in the TQ+ community hold homophobic and sexist concepts close to their heart, and found a place to express that. I was always very annoyed by the GO fandom in particular, but I felt a sense of almost religious guilt over it? Like I was a Good Trans Ally, I shouldn’t be annoyed at trans headcanons. I shouldn’t feel like all of the PIV fanfic wasn’t gay, because it totally is, right?

But then repeatedly, TQ+ people showed me that they were entirely unwilling to put in even a fraction of the effort to be a gay ally, that I put in to be a trans ally. Just from seeing how hostile they were to something as simple as gay headcanons made me think “shit, if they can’t even handle the idea that a fictional character is only attracted to the same sex, what must they think of real homosexuals?” Which then led me to allowing myself to actually see the homophobia in what people said about things like “genital preference”, instead of trying to block out the discomfort I felt in fear of being “transphobic”.

Ultimately it was this essay that really showed me how much the TQ+ community hates homosexuals. Because I read it, and as a lesbian it made so much sense to me. I remember being so happy to have finally seen a perspective similar to my own; a homosexual perspective.

But commenters were bashing it as “transphobic”. Which just told me that to them, homosexuality and speaking about homosexuality is “transphobic”. And I was remembering those same sentiments being echoed by so many people outside of fandom spaces, and I had to accept that I just couldn’t associate with that ideology anymore. Not when it stood against the way I was born.

I could say so much about my whole “peaking journey” for lack of better term, but I’ve already said a lot lol.

#sorry it took me so long to answer this lol #I knew I wanted to talk about what got me here so I wanted to wait until I had energy to do that 😅#asks #anon

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thirst2 · 2 years ago

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Out of the Bars, Into the Streets: An Interview By Eye Zen Presents

For our second post in our Deep Dive series, director Seth Eisen and I (Jax Blaska, research & production assistant) sat down to talk about the rise of gay bar culture in the early 1960s and how that contributed to the burgeoning gay liberation movement. The transcript of our conversation is below, along with links for further reading and historical context for certain happenings. Italicized segments below are pop-out context/deeper info on the topics we touched on. Enjoy!

Jax Blaska: What feels most important to you, when we think about (gay) bar culture in this time? How was this a shift from what came before?

Seth Eisen: The first thing that comes to my mind is the words: Safe space. And the other thing that comes to my mind is Romeo’s Pizzeria.

Image courtesy of https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Black_Cat_Cafe

Romeo’s Pizzeria stood at 1605 Haight St., where Relic Vintage now lives. From 1964-1965, Romeo’s was the location of drag performer, activist, and eventual candidate for SF supervisor Jose Sarría’s operas. His performances’ typical location, the Black Cat Cafe on Montgomery St. in North Beach, closed that year after its owner had fought long and relentless legal battles in court for over 15 years.

I think it’s really interesting that that marked the transition in a way, because that year was really significant, in that the Black Cat closed after their long legal battle. Sol Stoumen, the proprietor, was a kind of incredible guy, I’m really fascinated by him. He was a Holocaust survivor, and a straight man, but his bar catered to all types of people — the Beats gathered there, older locals from the neighborhood, and of course, the gay crowd. There was so much police harassment going on, all about serving gay people. First of all, you could not be an out gay person as an owner of the bar, because if you’d ever been convicted of a crime against morality — which many people were, for soliciting or performing a lewd (homosexual) act — you were prohibited from running a bar. Women could not serve alcohol, (or even, in some places, legally enter a bar) so there was always a man working the bar. Even at Maud’s, the longest running lesbian bar up in Cole Valley, they had male bartenders, because that was the law. The ABC -- Alcohol Beverage Control board — had lots of control over how all these laws went, and then they were all tied together with Catholic, or Christian, politics and morality of the era, moving from the early 20th century into the mid 20th century. Mr. Stoumen took them to court a number of times, to the California Supreme Court, and he actually eventually won.

Landa Lakes performing as José Sarria outside Black Cat.OUT of Site.NorthBeach. Images courtesy of Chani Bockwinkle

But anyway, this is just to say, it’s an interesting thing that José’s stint at Romeo’s Pizzeria coincides with the closing of [the Black Cat]. Stoumen is such an important person, I think, in the fight for being able to serve queer people, and for queer people to be able to gather legally in a bar, because that was our safe space. And then there was this whole ring of police harassment and bribery — bribing the cops. So, regularly, a cop would come in, he’d give him the hundred bucks, or whatever it was, for that day, and then they would not bug them. And if not, there’s a whole bunch of arrests, and all that shit. This also brings in the beginnings of SIR, the Society for Individual Rights, and then also the Tavern Guild. They were one of the first gay activist organizations to gather power and the rights of queer bar owners and business managers to not be bugged.

JB: “The right to not be bugged,” I love that. And it’s interesting, because when we talk about queer liberation, and the birth of the more widespread gay liberation movement, often we talk about different uprisings that have happened in different bars. Obviously there’s Stonewall, but even before that, there’s Compton’s Cafeteria, in the Tenderloin. So it is really interesting to me that the bars and restaurants and clubs that served gay people become this rallying site from which to create a larger political movement. It starts as being just about — “just” about — “no, we have the right to gather and drink with our friends,” and then it becomes this larger fight for dignity.

SE: Yeah, the bars, that’s the first level of it. That’s a place where we could gather safety and power, because it wasn’t safe on the streets, being harassed, especially if you were non-binary or genderqueer in some way. And there was just so much blatant homophobia on the streets, and violence, and especially by the cops.

Which is what Stoumen was trying to fight. They basically forced him too close. Even though he went through years of legal battles. And won. But it wasn’t in time to save it. So then, moving forward, these bar owners band together, and José I think was pretty instrumental in developing the Tavern Guild. That was the first gay business association in the country, founded in 1962.

Yeah. Wow. It’s really telling — it’s not surprising, but it’s telling — that the first gay business association in the country is the Tavern Guild. That early solidarity is organized around equal access to bars. And it was based out of San Francisco.

Jose Sarría, nicknamed the Nightingale of Montgomery Street for his operatic performances at the Black Cat, was instrumental in developing the Tavern Guild, initially drawing together gay bar owners (and heterosexual owners of gay bars, like Sol Stoumen) to raise funds to pay for bail money and legal fees, like the ones Stoumen was facing for his long court battles. While it was too late to save the Black Cat, which closed in 1963 after its liquor license was revoked by the ABC and it could not survive by selling only food and soft drinks, the Tavern Guild did go on to become a crucial organizing arm of gay liberation in San Francisco. SIR and the Tavern Guild were closely intertwined allies: SIR would meet at alternating bars whose owners were members of the Tavern Guild, drawing business on typically slow nights, and Tavern Guild members would donate food and drink to SIR for its parties.

Image courtesy of https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Black_Cat_Cafe

Image courtesy of https://revolution.berkeley.edu/tavern-guilds-beaux-arts-ball/ via the Berkeley Tribe

The most major event that the Tavern Guild would sponsor was an enormous Halloween drag ball, the first of its scale in the Bay Area, first held in 1963 at the Jumpin’ Frog on Polk St. At the third annual of these Beaux Arts Balls in 1965, Jose Sarría was named Queen. Declaring that he was already, had always been, a Queen, he then named himself Empress, and the Imperial Court system was born.

One really interesting thing is that at a certain point, after all this police brutality that was happening with the bars — I’m really fascinated by this straight police officer who the commisioner assigned to the gay community, and this was a real turning point.

Wow.

Yeah. So the history is pretty massive: there was a New Year’s party that was planned at the California Hall, on Polk St., and it was organized by a bunch of priests, including Reverend Cecil Williams, from Glide Memorial Church, who was a major activist in the scene, and Ted McIlvenna, a minister who later was a key figure in the San Francisco Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. They planned this event so that this alliance between religious leaders and the gay community would prevent police from breaking it down, and assert that these people actually had the right to gather, and be there together. And then there was a huge raid, the cops did not do as they had promised, even one of the priests got arrested — anyway, that’s a whole other can of worms, but it’s an important moment because through that event, the failure of that event, came this desire and need for there to be a dialogue between the police department and the queer community. And it was, really interestingly, the priests that were leading this — who were also, you know, getting money from the government to help combat poverty at the time, so they were able to invest more into this. I’m really fascinated by Elliot Blackstone, the police officer tasked as an intermediary between the gay community and the SF Police Deaprtment. He worked closely with the trans community, too, after a number of folks approached him about the brutality and violence they faced. He was an ally. He was like, “you can’t just go in and start arresting people randomly.” But of course, this is all tied to years and years of this police brutality. In all the neighborhoods that we were in — Polk Street, North Beach, the Haight, the Castro — the raids were just everywhere.

Image courtesy of https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/sf-pride-timeline/ via John Storey/The SF Chronicle

So all that stuff is really important to name. So then, once we move forward, going into the seven gay bars in the Haight, we can start to talk about the differences between them and the kind of individuality that was starting to happen. Maybe that was always the case, I don’t know, but like in North Beach, with the very early gay bars, there were always differences — lesbians went to one place, there was one place that was more touristy — but I think there was more nuance happening in terms of individuality in the gay community, and different kinds of queers. For example, we would note the gay hippie bars, the more activist lefty crowd, sometimes those mixed, and then the “clone” crowd.

The Seven Gay Bars of Haight Street:

Gus’s Pub. 1446 Haight St. Gus’s was frequented by motorcycle guys and leathermen. It served only beer and wine, no hard liquor, and its backyard was notorious for potsmoking, political discussions, and gay sex. Eye Zen friend/collaborator and filmmaker behind The Cockettes, David Weissman, told us in an interview that at first it didn’t occur to him that Gus’s was a gay bar because “I had never seen gay people that looked like that before” — that is, not effiminate or flamboyant, but masculine and tough. Lefties and hippies frequented as well. The wallpaper was a collaged collection of obscene comics and photos.

The Question Mark. 1437 Haight St. Now Trax, having changed its name in the early 80s. Directly across the street from Gus’s, The Question Mark brought a slightly higher-class, less politically-radical & leftist crowd. It was decorated with moose heads, and ironically, had a giant framed photo of Gus’s Pub displayed on the wall.

The I-Beam. 1748 Haight St. The I-Beam was the first big gay club in the Haight — filling a crucial niche, because prior to its opening, gay gathering places in the neighborhood were smaller and thus more secretive/private. But the I-Beam was big, and loud, featuring rock and punk bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran and the Cult, as well as their packed Sunday afternoon Tea Dances, which provided an environment in which gay attendees were the majority. There was a $5 cover charge to get in, to which the hippies were initially opposed, as they felt it was an infiltration of “clone” gays from other parts of the city who were hopping on the bandwagon without being invested in the political and social ideals which gay hippies stood for. Nonetheless, the I-Beam was wildly popular, drawing up to 1000 people a night, and was a huge part of the “gay renaissance” of the Haight in the late 70s and 80s (the I-Beam opened in 1977). Its often drug-fueled dance parties, however, were the target of numerous sound complaints from neighboring businesses hoping to shut down this bastion of gay nightlife. The I-Beam closed in 1992, unable to remain competitive with the South of Market clubs which were permitted to go all night, as well as the devastation of the AIDS epidemic.

Bones. 1840 Haight St. Now, Milk Bar.

Cadillac. 1511 Haight St. A historical gay bar, then reopened as The Deluxe in 1978. Along with I-Beam, the Deluxe was one of the popular spots responsible for the “gay renaissance” of the neighborhood — it was a trendy spot to play pool and cruise.

Mauds. 937 Cole St. Owned by Rikki Streicher, Mauds was a familial gathering spot for San Francisco lesbians for over 20 years, until its close in 1989. Men were welcome — as bartenders, as California law prohibited women from pouring drinks. Streicher hosted holiday dinners for folks who didn't have family or homes to return to. For more, see the film Last Call at Mauds.

Bradley's Corner. 900 Cole St. Bradley’s Corner was a neighborhood piano bar for nearly 40 years, the last 20 of which were distinctly gay. Gays and lesbians gathered together there, along with military personnel from the Presidio — some of whom, no doubt, were included in the first categorization — and folks sang along to the piano and played pool. Around the corner from Mauds, Bradley’s also had a familial vibe: every Tuesday, spaghetti dinners were offered for 69 cents, while Wednesdays were "hat nights": "Wear a hat and pay 50 cents for bar drinks" reads an ad from the time.

Of these, only Trax (formerly The Question Mark) remains as a gay bar today.

So anyway, I think a key theme here is identity, post-Stonewall. Or, let’s just say, during the height of Gay Liberation. Because Stonewall is only one event. I love that — in the book we’ve been passing around [Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, a compilation edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca] it names three events, pre-Stonewall — if you think about it, there’s Cooper’s Donuts in LA (1959), there was Dewey’s in Philadelphia (1965), Compton’s Cafeteria here in San Francisco, in the Tenderloin (1966), and then of course there’s the Stonewall (1969). And all of them had uprisings. And out of that comes gay liberation. That’s one of the factors. Not tolerating the harassment anymore, and asserting our rights. And so — Gay Liberation Front, the Bay Area Gay Liberation Front, the Society for Individual Rights, the Tavern Guild — all of these organizations are basically playing off each other, and they are the next generation after the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis. I think that’s important to mention: there’s starting to become this new awareness of what our identity was, that our identity was nuanced, and that there could be different places for different people to be.

Right, and not just — my understanding of Mattachine and Daughters of Bilitis is that they were pretty straight-laced, like, “gay people, they’re just like you,” march in Washington holding signs and wearing suits and dresses. Assimilationist, because there wasn’t really another option. But later, to really be able to assert — you know, Compton’s was primarily Black trans women and drag queens who initially fought back. There was someone, we don’t know who she was, but she throws her coffee in a cop’s face, and that apparently is what starts the uprising. Beginning to assert ourselves as queer people as having lots and lots of nuance and different types of desires and wants for community and liberation. Feels like a really crucial turning point.

Yeah, it is a crucial turning point. So, in the early 60s, our rights are changing, and these different bars are opening, in the Haight. There’s more nuance and more individuality, distinguishing one bar from the next, different versions of “gay” you could be. And out of that a kind of a revolution is happening.

This idea of gathering in community is obviously huge. Cannot be overstated.

Yeah, the gathering. And in terms of gathering, we also have the Golden Cask, which David Weissman [interviewed for the oral histories we gathered] mentioned was a big gay hangout and a very good restaurant, at 1725 Haight, so it was up a little higher, closer to the park. And then there was Blue Front Deli, which is still around, and it was a gay-owned business, and then Mommy Fortuna’s Cafe, which is where the Cockettes hung out. So I think between those places, there was a lot of gay gathering spaces, to be out and be ourselves.

I think this is a great backbone to the story about how gay bars played a role in gay political awareness and liberation. I’m also interested in how these gathering places, combined with the spirit of sexual revolution in the 60s, impacted folks more personally, on an individual level, in their sex and romantic lives.

So should we talk about sex?

Let’s talk about sex. My next question is: what changed for queer people with the sexual revolution of the 60s? What didn’t?

In terms of sexuality, I think when you’re repressed for long enough, living under some other morality system that you don’t subscribe to, that, I would think, would make us want to express ourselves in the most free & open way. To be in private spaces where we could love ourselves; where we could feel both safe and comfortable to be able to express ourselves sexually. “Gay is good” was a slogan José [Sarria] coined — this belief that we could be together in the ways that we wanted to, it wasn’t shameful, and it could be less hidden. As opposed to the ten years before, at these gay and lesbian bars in North Beach, when as soon as a cop walked in, you go and you dance with a person of the opposite sex. There’d be a word, or a code, flickering the light off and on, and there’d be this switching that would happen.

It’s a pretty interesting example of solidarity between the two communities. “Okay, neither of us want to be caught in this situation, so let’s pretend — let’s be beards, while the cops are here.”

Yeah. So I think with those newer freedoms, then you add LSD into it, once the 60s come around, and people are like, slithering around, and just wanting to make love to everything in nature. There’s pot, and mushrooms, and other drugs, to kind of help us get more into our bodies and appreciate what we have, who we are, physically, as social, sexual, spiritual beings.

I love that a lot. I love this idea that in some ways the drugs that became super widespread in the 60s may have helped the culture in general but in particular queer people to feel a part of their bodies. And that was not something to be ashamed of, or to push away, but to really embrace.

Yeah. I mean, of course there’s also the opposite of that happening — rampant alcoholism and addiction, with people holding so much shame and internalized homophobia that it’s turning inwards on ourselves. As seen in movies like Boys in the Band, which was originally a 1960s play. So I think both of these things are happening simultaneously: drugs freeing us, and drugs taking a hold of us. And the different gay groups are going in different directions. Mattachine splinters off, as you were saying earlier, and the assimilationists are going further in that direction, into fitting in, versus Harry Hay and many others who were creating [Radical] Faerie circles, gathering together and seeing us as more whole, healthy, “normal” and unique in our own way.

That’s really interesting, this idea of uniqueness, because I wonder if that’s something that’s shifting for the culture as a whole, and not just within the gay liberation crowd. I wonder if it’s something to do with the 60s, and 70s, the hippie movement, anti-Vietnam war, this desire to not be seen as part of the machine of the nation, and everything it stands for, all of the norms that it upholds. I can just imagine, all of these kids who were born shortly after World War II, and raised in that shadow, beginning to split off, and say, “no, I want to be an individual, it is not the goal to blend in, have a white picket fence and a suburban home that looks identical to my neighbors’.”

Yeah. Even as [Eye Zen contributor, Out of Site interviewee, historian] Michael Sumner pointed out, really acutely, that going back even further, into the first and second World Wars, that San Francisco was a stopping off point, for people at sea, and for military personnel coming through town. A lot of people saw this as a place where they could be singular people. Straight people as well, but there was more opportunity for homosocial spaces. So SROs [Single Resident Occupancies] have long been vital to San Francisco, and they created more of these homosocial spaces, where men could be living all together, in single rooms, because they were itinerant workers, so they’d be going out to sea, wherever they were called to duty. And then, when people were coming back from the war, they were like, “am I gonna go back to this conservative village in Indiana, or am I gonna stay in San Francisco?” So that’s how a lot of people chose to remain here, as they came through here, and they saw the potential for freedom, even though there was still a lot of danger. It goes all the way back to those times, and the connection to military then. And Jose [Sarría] is really part of this generation, he served in the military, he was discharged… Gavin Arthur is another one. He also served in the military. So anyway, that’s a whole other story. But I love how those generations kind of intersect.

[Eye Zen contributor, interviewee, historian and friend] Joey [Cain]’s been talking to me too, about the first Faerie gatherings, the first Sissy Circles — they were really an outgrowth of Gay Liberation Front circles. They were events where political strategizing would happen more casually inside people’s homes, where they would get together and talk about politics. And places like Gus’s were hotbeds for that crowd. And then they were meeting, at Arthur Evans’ place, and there were a bunch of these houses, where people were getting together and going “no, we’re not gonna tolerate this, we’re gonna fight back.”

This connects to Atascadero, which was a mental hospital where gay people would be sent. They were giving lobotomies to gay people, they were doing electric shock treatments, they were doing aversion therapy treatment, where they would hook up nodes to their penis and shock them when they were thinking about gay men, or gay sex, or whatever. These people were tortured, and many never recovered, physically or mentally. Activist Don Jackson wrote an article titled “Dachau for Queers” that ran in the Gay Sunshine Press about his experiences visiting “patients” — inmates — there.

Wow. Oof. That is… strong imagery.

So that’s what we’re pushing up against. We’re seeing that, and we’re going “no.” Cause a lot of people don’t know this, but people have to know that. It’s really important.

Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know that. Or when I think about that [torture], I think about it in rural areas, conversion camps… I don’t think about it in the Bay Area.

Image courtesy of https://voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BGJFHJH19730316.1.7&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN---------------1 via Los Angeles Free Press, “California runs a ‘Dachau for Queers,’” March 16-26, 1973

Ok, speaking of the Bay Area. What role did nature or public parks play in queer hippie life? Part of what I meant with this question is not just the free sex, cruising spots but also, how did proximity to nature impact the culture and the ways that people related to each other? Because that is something that is unique to San Francisco in terms of other major cities in America.

Well that’s interesting that you bring that up, because Sunday I was feeling obsessed, trying to find more stuff, and I was rereading the interview with Michael [Sumner], and that’s one of the major themes that he got into: that especially the Haight, nature was a really important thing. LSD played a part in that, acid being a drug that puts you in touch with your body and the environment, that you’re in this state of presence. And Michael also mentioned that there was a whole group of radical queers from the GLF who were regularly going to different spots in San Francisco. There are more areas of nature in San Francisco than there are in most urban environments — and also they were going up to Russian River. That was the big hangout spot. And as we moved into the ‘70s and ‘80s, that remained, and still remains, a really important haven for queers. During the AIDS pandemic, a lot of people were going there to die, and thought they were going to die there. It’s so hard to say “they,” because everyone’s story is unique, but I’ve heard many stories of people going there to die, and then the cocktails happened, and they survived, and they are still there. I know a handful of people, who I’ve visited there, people I’ve known over the years. And you know, there are events, and bars there, the whole scene. But yes, I think nature’s really important.

And then there was, of course, sex happening in Golden Gate Park, at the Windmills, down near the beach, which has historically been a well-known gay cruising spot. And then there are all these bathrooms, within the park. There’s one particularly, right near the buffalo, that I’ve heard was a big cruising spot. Cause like, where do you go? You have roommates, they don’t know you’re gay, where do you go to have sex? But Buena Vista Park was really developed. I mean, you can still walk through there, and see the pathways that were created in different places. More on the Eastern side, off the beaten path, you can still see these pathways where you can walk between bushes. It’s all been opened up now, they’ve cut back all the bushes so it would stop — because it was like, a gathering space, there’d be dozens and dozens and dozens of people there, you’d go there to cruise people, you’d bring people there, there was sex happening all over the place. And then there was, you know, Bobby’s Victorian.

Well, we have to talk about Bobby’s Victorian, because as you know, this is one of my favorite details of the entire project.

I mean, he’s a fascinating character, Bobby Kent — he played in Glide’s band, he performed with Sylvester, he was really there in the moment. More connected, it seems, than most, in an interesting and unusual way. Why are you fascinated by him?

For some of the similar reasons you mentioned. Multiple different people have mentioned him, to you, to us, being like, “Oh yeah, he was there. That was him also,” and I’m always fascinated by the types of characters who tend to find themselves amongst different communities. There’s also something about the physical history — the built environment of the neighborhood. The fact that he had this job restoring old Victorians — you know, I grew up in a Victorian house up in the Fillmore, and have a lot of nostalgia for those types of homes, a lot of appreciation for how specific and weird a lot of their quirks are. So the fact that one of his crafts — he was a musician, among other things as well — but one of his crafts was this very loving restoration of these homes, not because it was profitable, back then, but because otherwise they were going to be torn down, and because he thought that they were beautiful, and they shouldn’t be torn down. And then to go and be like, “okay, I’m going to take scraps from these job sites I’m working on and go build a Victorian treehouse in the biggest cruising area in the city, and make it, like, an orgy treehouse — ” I also love that. I wanna know — I mean, the cops burned it down one night? I want to know, were there people there, did they see? Was there a raid on the park in general and then the cops burned it down in protest, or was it kind of in secret, like, toss a lit cigarette in, and then boom? I mean, I don’t know. That’s just — one of the details I’ve latched onto in this project.

Yeah. I love talking about this shit with you, Jax. It’s been really fun.

I feel the same way!

*both laughing*

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firespirited · 2 years ago

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Weird day today. Had a very nice but subtly unnerving surprise meeting with an old friend of the family. She brought up dad which was expected but the religious language and contextualising everything was tough: "you and us are doing ok because we're children of gd" "gd brings us together" "gd protect us from evil" type stuff along with usual gd willing, thank gd, gd is good language.

I handle references to faith just fine culturally in Arabic, it's a little less culturally comfortable in French (or even English) but it's also not something I can reply to except with a polite nod that doesn't say yes but "I hear you".

It brought up a lot of complex emotions about half a dozen things as these things do when you've been rejected or hurt by people with gd as a reason. Also a painful reminder that I need to establish religious boundaries again with family again because I do take words seriously and don't want to be praying or agreeing to prayer because its uncomfortable to say that I'd rather not - after all it is as a matter of respect, if gd is real I refuse to treat communication with Them as trivial.

It was lovely to see she and her family are well. She speaks very fast so I wasn't able to say that I'm very happy for her lesbian daughter even as I could see her skirt around it like she thinks I might be biased against it (Honey no! Even as a tween when I was still christian, I thought any couple willing to commit for life and actually take those 'all circumstances' vows was to be celebrated. Of the dozens of red flags to not approve a marriage, being gay seemed totally illogical to me. Besides the passages about mlm and wlw were clearly in context about getting it on outside of marriage for social or ceremonial reasons and saying it's not real sex because it's not P in V and like A) we'd covered ancien greeks getting freaky in school and B) this was the Monica Lewinski era: everyone in the western world debated whether only P in V/hetero constitutes cheating. As a kid I didn't see it but after Lewinski? Those passages are clearly about what counts as cheating).

And I'll be totally honest, I was so relieved: the first two daughters married macho abusive dirtbags and are now married to new nicer if not exactly groundbreakingly feminist blokes but M's got her stable girlfriend turned wife, and while wlw relationships aren't without heartbreak and high drama, she has a lot better odds of an equal relationship.

I came home and crashed, napped for a while, then had to go do something... anything... because I wasn't in a great headspace so bad news from a friend via sis sent me and her spiralling about medical malpractice/neglect, I went for a second walk - it helped a little. I damaged a doll I was fixing up because I was tired,

Watched Wakanda Forever: excellent potential, same vast talent but obviously made in a rush (bits are clearly missing or chopped to be used in a different way), the underwater world was a blurry dark mess (and that would have been so cool if we could see it!) and I couldn't bear to see them fighting (over what seemed so trivial compared to the real threats), finally we get to see Shuri process 1 thing in between... she's got a whole lot more but hey she's got 1 down. I mean you don't get character study films in the MCU, you get a 3 minutes for Gamora or Rocket to address their lifelong traumas so not bad at all for a Marvel. I just can't with a blockbuster attempting to handle grief while still making a hero action movie, it expects you to imagine a lot of offscreen growth and processing. I don't like seeing characters with potential done dirty like that. I'd rather read whatever tie-in books expand the universe because they *had* to put 45 minutes of fight and explosion scenes.

The costumes were incredible as always but yeah not in the mood to see Wakanda attacked while the CIA rub their hands in glee.

Then there's an unfortunate subtext of a skeptic finding faith after doing all the rituals right which was just the wrong day for me to take it charitably. I'm happy for her. Really. I'm also jealous.

Science tells us little gay boys grieve when they realise, even on a subconcious level, that they're not getting the happy ending of the wife and two kids, it leaves a void and they have to reshape themselves as adults to fill that wife shaped hole society told them would be filled.

I hope that changes now that gay marriage is normalised and seen more. I hope more and more folks can find completeness without needing one special person to complete them.

Now when you're a religious kid, you're given an extra void to shape yourself around, one that will be filled by the divine. It will give you confidence purpose and love, and reshaping yourself is difficult because this isn't just the missing piece of your soulmate but your entire existence and reason for being. Being single from the spiritual is felt like a permanent failure at being human.

Among many things today, I was reminded today of what it felt like to be looked at as 'soulless', a 'lost' soul at best and how that's legit how I saw myself and on some level still sort of do.

I'll rewatch Wakanda forever on a better day and skip the fights. Hopefully by then someone has fixed the colour and brightness on the underwater scenes.

#saf #Rambles #wakanda forever #Rant #tw: religious trauma #Movie reviews

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22degreehalo · 8 months ago

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So: be forwarned. This is traumadumping. If you don't want to deal with that, please do not!!!!!!!

But. You say that you can be 'firmly embedded in the queer community without ever identifying as queer.' How? How can I do that, when the queer community has caused me so much long-lasting pain, and cares so minimally to help people like me?

I am aro/ace. I figured that oit about myself right around ace discourse's emergence. To this day I am still fucked up about it. (Yes, that's pathetic. I don't ever expect an IRL therapist to understand or be moved by it. It's not how any normal person would react.)

I was told, repeatedly, that I wasn't wanted, that I was invading, that my very existence there was damaging and hurtful to gay people, because they are made to feel ashamed of their sexual attractions. We were mocked viciously, and told over and over that we were just pathetic overprivileged babies who needed to be taught what 'real oppression' looked like. Everything I felt was a joke; my pain was stupid and laughable and nothing worth taking seriously.

I have never seen anyone apologise for that. And even though it doesn't get spoken outright anymore, it never got refuted, either. It forms the backing of what so, so many queer people still believe.

I never see people talking about aro/ace oppression. Outside EXTREMELY limited circles. NOBODY talks about the rates of sexual assault against us. NOBODY talks about our difficulties surviving financially in a society built for couples (actually my main concern when I started realising myself, and what made me scared to think I was aro/ace rather than bi!!!) Even when aspecs are included, it's almost always as an off-handed bonus rather than something focused or deliberate. We're just people who don't really care for having sex much!!! Not at all capable of the same range of emotions and reactions to our identity as other sexualities!!

And this is NOT JUST AN ONLINE THING. I went to an LGBTQ+ leadership meeting once, and I was the ONLY one to mention being aspec, out of 30 people. At our local queer festival, out of hundreds of acts, only ONE mentioned asexuality (nothing for aromanticism, of course). I went to it. The house it was held at had flags for every orientation you could imagine - except ace and aro.

I went to a huge bookstore last year, which has a whole entire section just for LGBT+ books. (Maybe this is normal in the US? In Australia it isn't!) I spent a full hour in there, meticulously going through them all, and could not find ONE SINGLE BOOK that seemed to engage aro and/or aceness beyond a line or two or a glossary. One book claimed to love the full clunky LGBTQIA+ acronym because it reminds us of everyone who matters, and then forgot to mention us (talking about 'gay, transgender, bisexual' etc. people) two paragraphs later. Another had a double-spread on bisexual erasure, yet the only page referencing asexuality was dedicated to delicately warning the reader about 'getting too in the weeds with microlabels.' I don't presume I found EVERY aspec reference in there, but I was actively searching for them, and my results were miserable.

And, no, not even real life friends help!!!!!! I'm far from my only friend with aspec leanings, and yet EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. identifies more with a trans or lesbian identity, or not at all. I am the only one who seems to actually care about being aro/ace at all. And I don't blame them!!!!! If I could identify as lesbian or trans, and have that community and support and intellectual framework for caring about myself? I'd do it in a heartbeat!!!!!!!!! But I CAN'T. It's not me.

And, just to top it off? When I do try to engage with the aspec community directly? Thay doesn't work, either!!!!! Most of them (especially on reddit) hate porn and masturbation, and want to tell the world that they're happy being aspec and that it's not a sad thing at all. Whereas I'm the opposite: I'm not sex repulsed (at least r.e. porn etc.), i have multiple weird kinks, and being aspec has changed my life in so many ways for the worse. I want to tell people that! I want to make things better!!!!! But when I see people try, they keep getting stifled because 'try thinking about how it affects other asexuals to see people spreading negativity like that. :/'

I've identified as part of thee queer community for half my life. I worked manically on marriage equality. My special interests mostly revolve around queer fiction and analysis, of which I've written plenty. And through it all, I've only felt more and more like an outsider.

How can I not, when my thoughts and feelings on my sexuality really do seem so unusual? When nobody else seems to care in the SLIGHTEST what I go through? When, at this point, picking up queer media immediately brings up a pit of dread in my stomach, because I know it'll have nothing for people like me at all, and the guilt that comes with that, because I should be happy that other queer people are doing so much better now? How can I stop this build-up of horrible associations - fear, anxiety, shame, and impossible loneliness?

Maybe the solution is to stop wanting for things to change and just be happy as they are. But I just can't bring myself to abandon my scared younger self like that. I wished so badly for the kind of person I'm trying to be, bringing up aspec oppression when it has been ignored and treating us with the intellectual and emotional care I craved.

But it's so fucking hard. I'm so tired of working and working and seeing nothing change. I'm so tired of feeling like I'm maybe the only person who even cares about this - if the ace discoursers were right and I am just some pathetic loser 'trying to be oppressed.' I'm so tired of searching for commonality and finding it in crumbs at best.

I know I'm probably just terminally online and need to make Real Friends. (I'm autistic. Big, varied social spaces just don't work well for me.) That's what the queer community does, right? Discourse and divisions are imaginary! In the Real World, queer people are fucking and falling in love with one another every day! Because that's what it means for communities to support one another! (And it's divisive and absurd for me to feel uncomfortable with this metaphor, too.)

So. How do I do it? How do I belong in a community that mostly does not want me, and has over time caused me as much harm as help?

(Well. The real answer is that I have no fucking choice, because it's not like straight people are any better. C'est la vie.)

Listen, you were given one wild and precious life, please do not waste it by dividing yourself and others from community.

I have this friend, who was in the process of figuring out some things around their identity, and again and again, they separated themselves from the queer community for some reason or another, giving distance as a form of imposters syndrome, and it broke my heart because they were a part of my queer family. Not in the static way of knowing a person's exact set of labels and being able to quantify where they may have landed on the Kinsey scale, but in the way that mattered.

They were my queer family because I knew I could rely on them to listen and reshape their view of the world again and again to make room for me. They were my queer family because they loved me and my wife fiercely and with an ardent devotion that is usually saved for biological relations. They were my queer family because I knew I could rely on them to fight for my queerness and be outraged when I was just exhausted.

Just as I believe that you can be a queer person and never choose to connect with the queer community, I also believe that you can be deeply embedded in the queer community without ever having to identify as queer.

Anyways, so much love in my heart for queer family today. From the past, the people who have known and kept secret, who have known and loved, who have known and learned. From the present, the people who are working to understand, the people who care so much, the people who are angry when we are scared. And, of course, in the future, thank you for joining us, thank you for being family, thank you for holding the world to a higher standard.

#long post #aspec #trauma dumping

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idklolheheheheheh · 2 years ago

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LEA

Lea POV

I look across the room and see a cute girl waiting by the chocolate fountain. I’m at a party and I am bored because there is no one here that I know. I came with my friend, but she abandoned me for a cute boy. But damn, I was more interested in this girl now. She gave off this vibe that said “Come over here”. I was definitely going to listen, because I had nothing better to do. “Hey, girl,” I said, slowly strutting over to her. She smirks at me. “Oh, aren’t you Hueningkai’s big sis?” she wonders.

I smirk back. “Um, yeah. I’m Lea. Do you wanna maybe get out of here, go outside?” I ask.

Y/N POV

What the hell, this girl Lea, who was Hueningkai’s brother, was talking to my pathetic ass. I wasn’t gonna say no, though. I had come to the party with my boyfriend, but he had disappeared on me anyway. We sat outside, sipping our drinks casually, watching people inside dance or make out through the window. “Um, so what brings you here?” she wonders casually. “My boyfriend’s best friend is hosting it,” I murmur. I glance over to see her whole face cringe, but she quickly hides it. “Oh, um, I’m single,” she mutters. I laugh. “Really? An attractive woman like you?”

Lea POV

“I’m attractive?” I ask her, wanting to hear it again from her lips. She’s very intriguing and beautiful. “Oh yeah. Not that I’m lesbian or anything. Also I have a man,” she says too quickly. I laugh at her response. “Okay. Well, you’re hot”, I say confidently. She shivers. “Oh…” she says breathily. That does it. I lean over and peck her lips. “Oh fuck, was that okay?” I ask. She grins. “I have a man, and I’m not gay, but fuck that was hot,” she admits.

I grin. “Well, here’s more then,” I whisper in her ear, grabbing her shoulders and throwing myself on her lap. I bite down on her bottom lip, and grind my pussy slowly against her. These stupid jeans need to come off. I don’t even care that we’re outside. “W-what if my boyfriend comes out here and sees?” she worries. I laugh. “That’s his problem,” I reply, grinding harder. I lick her bare shoulder and rub her clothed clit with my fingers, eliciting a moan that’s sending me over the edge. Neither of us have experience with other women, but now I don’t want to go back to men.

Y/N POV

This woman, what the fuck. I didn’t know I could feel this good. My boyfriend never pleases me like this, he only fucks me to please himself. So, this woman is making me come undone. I might break up with my man after this, because how can I go back to men now? Let him come out here and see, I don’t care anymore. He doesn’t treat me the best anyway. Lea bites my lips hungrily and I moan in response.

“Lea~” I whine. “Mmm”, she hums against my lips, rubbing her pussy against mine. “We need to fuck. Take your clothes off,” I moan. She does, easily unsnapping her bra and whipping it off after her shirt. She lets me undo her jeans and panties, causing me to moan at how soft and tasty she looks. She then helps me with my own clothes, and we’re bare, in public, in someone’s backyard, about to fuck. Specifically my boyfriend’s best friend’s backyard. The fuck am I doing? Eh, who cares. I need Lea Huening to fuck me and that’s all that matters.

Lea POV

I grin at her, slowly moving my eyes down her body, visually fucking her. She shivers. “Lea…” she murmurs. I grab her delectable titties and squeeze them softly, circling her nipples with my fingers. She throws her head back and whines. “Oh my fucking god, yesssss mommy!” she yelps. I smirk. She’s just encouraging me to go further. I hope she knows what she is signing up for. I can’t handle being called mommy. It makes me go feral. I keep squeezing her left boob, and move my mouth onto the nipple on her right. She tastes so soft and good. I suck harder until she is screaming with delight. I swipe my tongue all over that thing.

I’m surprised no one has come out here yet. She pushes me off suddenly. “It’s my turn to make you feel good,” she says. I shiver. “Okay, Mommy,” I reply. She puts her fingers in my mouth and then squeezes my nipples. She bends down to taste them, and then swipes her fingers up my pussy without warning. “Uhhhhh~” I moan or something. I don’t know how to make noise, it just feels so good. “Fingering leaves you speechless?” she murmurs. “Mmm.” I squirm around so she can hit my sweet spot. “You’re so needy,” she says. I am. But so is she.

Y/N POV

Lea’s cunt feels amazing on my fingers. It’s making my own pussy wet with desire and need. Lea notices this and bends down. “Can I taste you?” she asks. I nod, shaking with need. “Please, Lea. Eat me out. My boyfriend sucks at it.” She puts her lips near my pussy, sliding her tongue up my thighs to tease me. My moans and sighs push her over the edge until she is licking my clit and my folds, using her fingers to tease it open. “You taste like heaven. There are no other words for how good you taste,” she moans. I am living for her reactions. “Ohhhhhhhhhh~~~~~~” she whimpers. She keeps going until I cum in her mouth. That tongue keeps swirling, making my pussy tingle with desire. I have to grab the sheets for balance, and I drool a little.

Lea POV

This woman tastes so salty and delicious. She certainly tastes better than any man I’ve given head to. But I also want her to taste me, so I stop eating her out and make out with her instead. “Taste your own cum,” I murmur. She does, our tongues intertwining, and then looks at my pussy. “Wanna taste yours, too,” she moans. I lay back, arching my vagina up towards her face. It’s at this moment that someone comes outside. “Oh my god,” she yelps before her lips make contact with my aching, throbbing, needy pussy.

I look up, annoyed, at whoever interrupted my turn at pleasure. “Nathan,” she says. “The fuck is this? Your man is right inside and you’re fucking Hueningkai’s sister? Seriously?” “Yeah, Nathan. I’m sorry, I know he’s your best friend and this is your house, but hey, we got horny, okay. Besides, I need to break up with him anyway, we are better as friends,” she explains quickly. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Can’t say I understand, but at least go get a room. Or go in your car. I don’t want him to see this,” he groans. “Yea, Y/N,” I say. “We can go in my car.”

She nods, and Nathan heads back inside, shaking his head. We run to my car and fall into the backseat, me on the bottom so she can eat me out. We’re such switches. She slides her tongue around my thighs, making me shake and whimper with desire and pleasure. “MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!” I yelp. Her tongue then dives into my folds, going up and down my clit and sending me to heaven. This lady can use her tongue for fucking sure. She manages to reach up and play with my boobs while doing so, and I grab onto her hair and scream with joy.

Y/N POV

Apparently I know how to pleasure a woman really well, judging by Lea’s reactions. I smirk and keep tasting her until she keens and cums all over my mouth. I grin and lap every drop up, and then swallow. Damn. She tastes like joy. I don’t know, just better than my man ever tasted.

“Do you wanna try scissoring?” she asks shyly, blushing and hiding her face. I nod. “Yes, Lea. Let’s do it.” We then get into position, her on top this time. Our pussies are so hairy and it feels so rough and hot as we thrust and scissor and move in rhythm with each other. Our skin is slapping and our wetness is mixing as our cunts slide and grind against each other. Who knew that two pussies together could feel so exciting, so hot, so new? My stomach explodes with pleasure and soon we’re both cumming everywhere. I lie in her arms, cuddling after the passion ends. She smiles and together we get up, staring into each other’s eyes. “That was hot. Let’s do that again some time,” I say. She smirks. “Hell yea!”

#lea navvab #wlw smut

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redshoes-blues · 2 years ago

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Stranger Things is written by a team of people who care about creating good queer representation.

One argument against Byler being endgame that I’ll never understand is the “Duffers + Stranger Things team are just homophobic, they’re queer-baiting and would never make it canon” one, because that’s just clearly not true?? Like at all lol.

Robin was originally written as Steve’s love interest, but after Maya (who is herself queer) suggested the idea that Robin be a lesbian, the Duffer brothers enthusiastically agreed and rewrote the scripts to account for this change. Since then, they’ve introduced a love interest for Robin, and written one of the most beautiful m/f friendships I’ve seen on screen. Seriously, the way they handled Robin’s whole coming out story is just beautiful!

Will Byers was always supposed to be gay. The hints are there since S1. And since S2 it’s clear that his feelings are held towards Mike specifically. This was written on-purpose by the Duffer brothers. Noah has even said that he’s known for years that Will is gay, but he had to be vague in interviews because the audience wasn’t meant to catch on right away (except for queer people, who of course understand his deliberate coding).

Robin and Will are both characters were meant to love and empathize with. Both of them being good queer characters with motives and personalities outside of their sexualities is great representation.

Stranger Things director Shawn Levy was the executive producer for I Am Not Okay with This, which I’ll always be mad at Netflix for cancelling. The show starred a lesbian girl struggling with anger and newfound powers, and was set up to develop into a beautiful wlw friends-to-lovers story.

Ross Duffer is married to the absolute icon and director of the sapphic horror series Fear Street: Leigh Janiak (seriously she’s amazing and FS has some of the best wlw representation I’ve ever seen). It’s a revolutionary series for the horror genre in the way it normalizes queer relationships. And I know FS and ST are two separate entities, but the themes are quite similar, highlighting found families of outcasts and finding self-acceptance in discriminatory worlds.

Not to mention the way the cast have reacted to Will’s sexuality being *finally* confirmed as gay, and especially to suggestions that Will is in love with Mike. Remember that interview where a question suggests Will and El are love interests and everyone gets giddy and talks about Will and Mike instead?? We have such a lovely cast, full of queer icons and allies who want Will to be happy!

So yeah, no, this is a team who are very much dedicated to putting out positive queer representation. Think what you want about Byler endgame, but the Stranger Things team being homophobes who queerbait shouldn’t even be a concern, IMO.

It’s really exciting to me that in such mainstream projects as Stranger Things, we’re seeing well-written queer representation. The examples I brought up weren’t made for queer audiences, but are written with general viewers in mind. That’s important to keep in mind when we’re discussing Byler endgame, because these are writers and directors who have proven that they care about LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media, and that makes it a realistic outcome.

#this isn’t directed at anyone #it’s just something I’ve seen brought up way too many times #by bylers and milkvans alike #byler is endgame #byler #stranger things #duffer brothers #byler is requited #will byers #mike wheeler #robin buckley

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umalvie · 2 years ago

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Why do you see Azula as a lesbian?

I’m just dying for more lesbian!Azula content and I’d love to read your take on it.

well first and foremost azula has no significant relationships with men she's not related to so she just doesn't give the vibe of someone who cares about men in general. like i know that's because bryke wrote her as essentially a prop to make zuko look better, but they also chose to give her only meaningful relationships outside of her family with other girls. and those relationships are so meaningful they spur on a serious psychotic break when they fall apart.

secondly, i think the way she goes about trying to get chan to like her in the beach episode is very classic comphet. the idea doesn't occur to her until she sees ty lee getting male validation and attention, and considering how azula is a faildaughter when it comes to performing femininity, that upset her a lot and made her want to compete with ty lee's femininity. there's also a very easy tyzula lens to take to that moment, and i don't disagree at all that azula's motivations are also likely fueled by jealousy of the men getting ty lee's attention. i'll take it a step further and say there's also maizula vibes there because mai and zuko immediately enter/re-enter a relationship upon being reunited, and they do pda in front of azula who looks like she hates that, so not only is azula jealous of ty lee on both an attraction level and a "why are you so much better than me at performing femininity level," she's also probably jealous of mai on those same levels.

thirdly, the way azula performs a lot of masculinity while failing at performing femininity beyond wearing makeup makes me think she feels othered from girlhood and that is super common for lesbians. so let's say in addition to failing at being gentle and kind the way girls are "supposed" to be, azula is also failing at having the right kinds of relationships with and feelings about boys. that furthers the feeling of being othered and again puts the beach in perspective.

fourthly, this is where i'm going to enter maizula propaganda levels, i think it's really easy to read maizula interactions as romantic. they're limited, yes, but starting with the very first interaction, which canonically should be maybe 2 or 3 months after the last time they saw each other because omashu's fall is recent as is mai's family assuming leadership there, starts with them both very happy to see each other, to the point that azula laughs earnestly at mai's joke. there's also, of course, that super gay half-hug thing they do because azula is aware that mai doesn't like full-on hugs and is comfortable being physically affectionate with mai. azula's lack of punishing mai for openly and repeatedly going against orders implies a weird level of trust and care that i don't think bryke ever thought about which is gay on azula's behalf. the beach implies emotional intimacy as azula casually reads mai's whole life without it even being ill-intentioned and lets mai just yell at her. again, gay. azula would not let like 99% of people yell at her with no repercussions. the boiling rock episode of COURSE reads like a breakup. i don't even have to elaborate there. the whole throuple is breaking up but the maizula breakup is the roughest one given mai is dumping azula for her brother. i could go on about this in more depth, but i'm trying to limit my maizula propaganda tbh.

lastly, i just think azula seems like a lesbian. like even if not for all the textual and subtextual evidence that accidentally supports the idea, she's got mean lesbian energy, and i love that for her.

#azula #maizula

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tangents-within-tangents · 1 month ago

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Hi, demiro ace here to learn more about apl! If I may?

I'm kinda thinking it might be best for everyone if we don't consider apl apart of the aspec community (which is historically/currently defined as both the aro and ace spectrums only). If the umbrella gets too big it's not really helpful anymore. I definitely get how they are related with similar concepts of not experiencing a certain type of attraction, but they are also complete opposites, no? And while there are those who identify as both aro/ace and apl, these spectrums don't actually overlap like the aro and ace ones do (which is why it is helpful to talk about them together under the aspec). Like that overlap is more akin to someone who also identifies as bi or trans and apl, it's an additional identity that doesn't really have anything to do with the other, a venn diagram not a connected spectrum.

Trans identities are about gender, lesbian/gay/bi/pan/etc are about who you experience sexual/romantic attraction to, and aro/ace are about how you (do or don't) experience that attraction. But aplatonic is about friendship, about how you relate to people outside of relationships. It's not a romantic or sexual spectrum so it has as much to do with aro/ace as it does with Lgbt-etc and vice versa, right? I just feel like it would be better to view aplatonic as a separate valid thing.

Like if it sucks and feels unwelcoming to you, maybe sometimes that just means it's not the right place for you, not that the place needs to change. And I'm not saying apl-phobia is okay and we shouldn't strive to be better (esp with acknowledging the overlap), but if you are mad at the 'values platonic relationships more than romantic and/or sexual ones' community for doing just that, that's kinda aro/ace-phobic.

yea sure to YOU sexual/romantic relationships don't mean anything/are devalued/etc, but not to all of us!!

Yeah we know, it's like that with all allos in the Lgbtq+ community! What do you want asexual/aromantic people to do about that? I could say the exact same thing, "sure to YOU platonic relationships don't mean anything/are devalued, but not to all of us." We shouldn't have to make caveats in all our posts for people who are allo-romantic/sexual when that's not what we're here to talk about no more than you should have to for people who are allo-platonic. It's just counterproductive.

That's kinda like a lesbian complaining about how all gays ever talk about is how hot guys are. Where those communities do relate is in experiencing same-sex attraction (the same way ours relate in experiencing a lack of a certain attraction) and even though they may technically overlap with people who are bi/pan (like we may with people who are on both spectrums) they are still quite different and therefore considered separate groups while still being included together under the wider umbrella of queer/Lgbtqia+

I think it's clear we would benefit from a similar distinction, and I'm curious to hear what others think about this. Like maybe 'anattractional' spectrum instead can be about anything with an a- prefix referring to a lack of an attraction (the same way Lgbp can be lumped together under homosexual or SSA), while 'aspec' can still refer to just the aro/ace spectrum.

(Also, I get the frustrations with relationship hierarchies, but I just want to clarify: when alloplatonic aro/ace's say we value platonic relationships more, we mean for us. We're saying that sexual/romantic relationships are less valuable to us (esp bc that is not reflected in an amatonormative society) not that they can't/shouldn't be valuable to anyone who is allo. When we speak out against amatonormativity, it's that we want platonic relationships to be seen on the same level of value as romantic relationships in society as a whole (the same way that feminism is about equality for women, not bringing them above men). Amatonormativity and platonormativity are mutually exclusive, getting rid of one doesn't mean replacing it with the other (especially since both currently exist). The normativity is the problem, we aren't speaking against the people who happen to conform with it but those who want to enforce it. It's about the mindsets and how they are exclusionary for those who don't conform.)

being apl in aspec communties sucks sm. everything is all about how important platonic relationships are and "dismantling relationship heirarchies", while just building new ones. it feels super unwelcoming.

like yea sure to YOU sexual/romantic relationships don't mean anything/are devalued/etc, but not to all of us!! some of us LIKE those things, and MORE than platonic relationships. its like we rnt even aspec at all 2 these people, like sorry some of us go against the grain of society while still having certain ""non queer"" parts to our identity. i feel like we are seen as not aspec/lgbt enough to participate in those communities. so much about the aspec communtity is about how untalked about we are and how we are never included or thought about in discussions, but aro and ace communtities do the same to us!!!

#asexual #aromantic #aroace #aspec #aplatonic #lgbtq community #lgbtqia #intersectionality #umbrella terms #amatonormativity #aphobia #just bc we share the A doesn't mean we have to be viewed as the same group #same way some people think agender is aspec #but it's not #it has nothing to do with the aro/ace spectrum #it's a GENDER identity so it's under the trans umbrella

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vampish-glamour · 4 years ago

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(1/2) You ever think how "I'm so gay" is just a way of saying "hot"? Where a straight person would say something like "I want to motorboat her tits" or "I've never wanted to suck a dick so bad", tumblr gays will go "not to be GAY... but o,,,,h m y. G o D ! ! hngnngngnggn jesus chRISt". With lesbians this is seems especially bad. Ime (I'm a lesbian myself) it's rare to see a lesbian openly express her attraction without these weird contortions even outside of tumblr.

"so gay" anon (2/2) I wonder how much of it has to do with demonization of sexuality both male and female (you don't want to sound like an icky STRAIGHT MAN, the horror! vs women in general being judged for expressing attraction vs lesbians in particular struggling against the sexsless "uwu soft gorls flower crowns" stereotype), and how much of it has to do with wanting to signal an in-group and a stereotypically female need to make it like a communal experience (tumblr being mostly afab).

Oh, absolutely.

(Future me coming back here after I wrote my response. Buckle up, I have Thoughts.)

You’re right on the money here, especially since it’s something I’ve experienced myself.

There’s so much demonization and weird expectations around sexuality. Including but not limited to;

Demonizing people who express sexual attraction to women, viewing them as “predatory”

The experience lesbians specifically often have with feeling alienated from their straight girl peers (not being able to do typical platonic things found in female friend circles like hugging, braiding hair, holding hands, etc. Without fearing being seen as predatory)

Thinking all straight men are just straight up rapists

Seeing sexual attraction as icky and impure, and favouring romanticized “she has such pretty hair”, “I want to kiss her cheek”, “I want to hold her hand in a flower field”, etc.

As far as the last point goes, you’re absolutely right that it happens mostly with wlw (especially lesbians though since unlike bi women we’re only attracted to women, so it’s our whole attraction that’s affected. And the word “lesbian” itself is often seen as inherently gross and predatory. Not saying this doesn’t affect bi women—because it does—just making the distinction).

Look through any wlw, sapphic, or lesbian tag on Tumblr. It’s likely to be filled with all these cutesy things that often infantilize same sex attraction to women. Calling women “girls”, talking about how “pretty” they are, talking about flowers a lot for some reason, and honestly the overall tone that’s used which is very “uwu innocent soft girl”. So eventually you get bombarded with things like “omg girls are so pretty, just look at how their hair twirls, I just wanna braid flowers into it, I’m so gay”.

And everyone’s scared to go further than that and go into the gross sexual territory—because if anybody dares to express sexual attraction towards women? They’re evil and misogynistic and predatory. If you’re wlw and you’re doing it? Omg, you’re making women unsafe in locker rooms!! What, are you looking at them???

Sorry, this is sort of turning into a rant on how suppressed wlw sexuality is. Because it bothers me so much. And yes, I was 100% somebody who would say “omg not to be gay but”/“wow I’m gay”/“I’m having gay thoughts right now”/etc. In place of “wow, that lady is hot”. So it’s something that’s personal and close to home for me.

Point is, you’re so right and you should say it. Because this is such a common problem. I think it could also be a result of same sex attraction being so sexualized (in the case of men it’s usually to portray SGA as “icky, in the case of women it’s usually to make porn), and SGA people feeling the need to push back against that and say “no, look, we’re just as pure as you are!!”.

It’s a lot of things coming together and working against us. And now we have “I’m so gay” as a way to express attraction without having to deal with the negative repercussions of expressing attraction as a gay/bi person, especially a gay/bi woman.

Despite all this, I think that there genuinely is a problem with people throwing around “I’m so gay” without any of these things factoring in. Because I see people saying things like “I like iced coffee, I’m so gay haha” or “I’m so gay, I can’t even drive”. That I think is just a result of the word “gay” being watered down so much, so now it means “quirky” instead of “homosexual”.

But where it’s used in place of “wow that’s hot” or “holy shit she’s gorgeous”, or anything of the sort? Absolutely a result of the demonization around same sex attraction.

So to sum my thoughts up, because I think this is really important to talk about;

Sexual attraction is still seen as “impure”. This goes double for same sex sexual attraction.

Any sexual attraction to women is seen as predatory. Often due to homophobia, it’s seen as worse when it comes from wlw.

To escape being seen as gross and predatory, wlw (and honestly SGA people in general) have adopted a culture of purity, femininity, romanticism, and flowery prose to come off as anything but sexual.

This leads to language like “that’s so hot” being replaced with more acceptable alternatives like “I’m so gay”. This way the feelings of attraction can be communicated, but not explicitly because that would be Bad.

#asks #anon #y’know what I’m adding this to #glam’s angry lesbian hours #because yes this upsets me a lot.

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thatsjustsupergirl · 3 years ago

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Personally, I don’t think the Danvers sisters content was that bad; it just needed room to breathe. I think the show is scratching at an interesting final character arc for Kara, but isn’t dedicating the time it needs. There’s something really interesting at the heart of that debate, where Kara is stuck on how things had to be for her (maybe even jealous of Esme) and Alex is saying things don’t have to be that way for Esme, which is ironic coming from Alex, but the show didn’t give it enough time, particularly when there’s been so little sister content this season. I guess what I’m saying is that, if they had built this argument up over a few episodes and given it a more defined, positive resolution, I think it would have worked better, but I’m not opposed to it on principle. On a different note, I know she’s somewhat inexplicably popular with the fandom right now, but I do totally agree that friging William for Andrea was a crap move.

so, first: i agree with you that the pacing has been uneven and that’s part of the problem. second: i have wanted the show to explore Alex’s biases and prejudices against aliens since they brought it up in Season 2. because she has some! just like she had some biases she was oblivious to when it came to Kelly!

but instead we got this episode, which,,,,, pulled some White Gayze nonsense and textually supported Alex even though her opinion was, objectively, wrong— and then left no hint that they’re going to revisit this conflict in the remaining episodes.

and that’s a problem, because i have been wondering since we saw Kara’s courage gauntlet if confronting Alex was part of the emotional price that she wouldn’t push herself to pay. (especially since Nyxly’s was also about her sibling and feeling betrayed!)

beyond that, their fight was a shoddily-contrived conflict that existed to set up Kara ~learning a lesson about herself~ in the finale without giving Kara any emotional voice at all, again.

Alex literally asked for Kara’s help with Esme’s powers two episodes ago because she was so afraid this kid would hurt herself, or others.* Alex deferred to Kara’s intervention when she was overanxious with Esme when they brought her home. like, the time gap between episodes this season is shorter than it is in a normal year, not longer. It’s been, at best, two weeks since those interactions. there is no reason for Kara to think her help is no longer wanted.

(*note: they didn’t even leverage the fact that Alex’s immediate family contains the two most powerful aliens on planet Earth and if Esme is constantly at risk of harm because she copies powers then Alex can’t even safely spend time with her own family.)

not only that, not once has Alex been the person to talk about her family’s experiences as a mixed race/species family. Kelly’s brought it up. Kara’s brought it up. Alex is like “oh, right” every time. her blind spot here is so huge she didn’t even tell Esme that Kara was an alien when she first introduced them, despite knowing their powers could clash in a scary or dangerous way!

so, for the show to present Alex as right in saying she’s suddenly the expert because she watched Kara’s life from the outside, while actively contributing to Kara’s sense of isolation, is a problem. her claim that things are Better— a stance she pointedly has not agreed with whenever Kara’s tried to advocate for owning her identity in the past five seasons— is played as certainty, rather than her maybe reflecting on her own hand in making her sister feel conflicted about who she is. and then we have Alex toss out her identity as a lesbian in a false equivalence argument that white gays frequently used to shut down BAME voices in real life regarding discrimination? and that’s also played like an untouchable truth? screw that. especially since Alex and Kelly had a whole giant conversation about her prejudices like,,,,, a month ago, in show time.

the most infuriating part, to me, is that if they’d played it like Alex’s end of this conflict was her anxiety/perfectionism struggle and her fear that Kara is just. inherently better than her at things or better-suited to this part of raising her child than she is, then that would have felt interesting and character-true. instead it just felt like some insecure person in the writers’ room wanted to soapbox about being judged for their parenting, and like they as a group learned absolutely nothing from their diversity intervention five episodes ago.

so, yes, i’m absolutely gonna judge these messages about parenting, because this show was actively praised for years for doing a really, really good job at depicting the challenges and nuances of adoptive and blended families … and there is none of that in Season 6. everybody loves everybody and after one episode there are magically no struggles with trauma and reluctance to trust. Alex is shouting about being The Mom even though she’s known this kid for five minutes and it’s not guaranteed that they’ll get to keep her yet. there’s not even any narrative urgency about this pointless child endangerment plot jeopardizing Alex’s adoption plans even though 6x08-6x12 focused on discrimination and how the system is stacked against minorities. (and, you know, there’s her whole arc in season three about stepping back from dangerous work because it inherently conflicts with her parenting wants/needs.) and, worst of all, #StrongerTogether is nowhere to be found within this conflict, not even as subtext.

anyway, i do not see envy from Kara here. she framed her advice as “hey, this is what our parents did for me, and for as much as i chafed at it as a teenager, it was genuinely helpful in the long run” in response to an emotional kinship she felt with Esme. because she was trying to help navigate the challenging powers, like she’d been asked to. also, she wasn’t saying that Esme should hide or be ashamed of herself. she was just saying that giving her a life vest would be better than throwing her headfirst into the pool and hoping she’ll swim.

tl;dr i was really excited for all the pieces of this storyline to come together because it should have been deeply rooted in who Alex and Kara are individually and together, and should have been reinforcing the family story that was the heart of this show, and instead it’s been given all the depth of someone crossing items off a grocery list.

#supergirl #danvers sisters #alex danvers #kara danvers #season six #my meta #character stuff #long post

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