#it's a worrying and powerful combination of racism and homophobia (+ transphobia)

[betweenheroesandvillains]

Listen I can't make a coherent point rn for various reasons but the fact that Trump picked out Haitian immigrants in particular rings SEVERAL alarm bells in my head going back to the 80s and I am aware that that's bc I did more AIDS research than the average person but. The "original" 4H of "AIDS transmitters" were "Hookers", ""Homosexuals", "Heroin users" and "Haitians". I feel picking out Haitian immigrants for his scaremongering and lying seems sort of random to many but Trump remembers the 80s and a lot of voters remember the 80s and he is re-hashing old talking points from AIDS, which should be worrying because the stigma formed back then is STILL carrying into so many aspects of life.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Thinking today about viruses, allergies, oppression, and anti culture.

(under a cut because WHOOOPS this got long)

Racism is a virus. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, etc etc etc, they are all viruses--a topic that many of us have learned a great deal about in the past year. They are ideas, yes, not literal physical diseases, but the analogy holds up. They are infectious, and often spread from person to person without anyone involved realizing they have it. They can sit latent for years, never showing up because the carrier never finds themselves in a situation where the issue comes up, only to flare up and take over when you least expect it. And they mutate, just like the flu, just like the common cold; they put on a new jacket every year and slide in undetected yet again, slip past our internal sensors and bury themselves in our brains until we go in and deal with them as best as we can.

One more thing we've learned about viruses this year is how we can fight them. The viruses of oppression are a little different because they tend to hurt the people around their carriers even more than the people they've infected (although let's talk about internalized anything-ism sometime), but in a lot of ways the attack is the same. You treat the symptoms even when you don't know how to cure the disease: we invest in respirators, antiviral treatments, hospitals; we create and sponsor programs to help those who've been hurt by various oppressions, we uplift our neighbors, we try to keep people safe from violences both big and small. You work to stop the spread: we wear our goddamn masks, we stay home when we can; we train ourselves not to say racist shit that might foster a culture of hate, we stop that guy in our office from making rape jokes, we make slurs unacceptable. You pay attention to your immune system: we seek medical attention when we experience symptoms, we get COVID tests, we talk to our doctors before the symptoms get deadly; we protest and we pay attention to the people who do, we take them seriously when they tell us that something is wrong.

You vaccinate. We train ourselves and our immune systems to recognize the thing that infects us, the thing that we fear. We try to teach our children about history, bit by little bit, on fragments of dead violence the same way we train our bodies on dead virus shells, so that someday they'll recognize the live disease when they see it. We learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. We tell kids bedtime stories about why hitting and bullying is bad, before we ever start teaching them the specific shapes that violence so often takes. As we get older, as we get stronger, we learn about the living stuff, all the new forms that same old virus has mutated into; we educate ourselves, we listen, we read. Just like vaccines, of course, there are anti-vaxxers and denialists shouting about how racism and sexism are already dead and they don't need any propoganda besides Fox News. Hell, just like anti-maskers, there are plenty of people screaming about how political correctness is ruining the world and they demand their right to spread their virus to anyone they can. Often these are the same people.

But we try. And make no mistake, we all of us are already infected, and just like a real virus, once you've caught it once it probably won't ever go away again--but we can prepare, and we can try to lessen the severity of our cases, and we can support our immune systems of activists and protesters and our own internal sense of this is wrong, and we can work, bit by bit, if not towards eradication (not yet, not in this world, but maybe someday in another), then at least towards control.

And then there's allergies.

An allergy is what happens when a human body's own immune system freaks out over an enemy that wasn't particularly harmful in the first place. All our immune defenses--those precious immune defenses, which work so hard to protect us against all those viral, deadly ideas--go screaming into high gear. All of that fear and fury and attack power gets brought to bear all at once, against a bit of pollen or bee venom or cat dander or peanuts, and your body is left itchy and runny-nosed and gasping--sometimes literally--as it tries to keep up. Allergies are miserable. Sometimes they're life-threatening. And the biggest danger isn't the foreign agent that triggers the allergic reaction; it's the immune system trying to fight it in the first place.

Which, yes, brings us to anti culture--but not JUST anti culture. It's a good example, a little internet-centric microcosm of the same force that drives progressives to tear bloody shreds out of moderate liberal politicians. Hell, it's the same force that enables both TERFs and the Capitol rioters. It's a combination of an immune system that points in the wrong direction, flagging the wrong thing as bad, terrifying, danger, NO, and a freaked-out response that can manifest as anything from mildly irritating to absolutely deadly.

To be clear, I am not by any means equating the scale or even the source of these things, any more than hayfever is the same as anaphylactic shock. Likewise, the sources are different. Sometimes, a disease can infect an immune system and point it in the wrong direction. (Terror of the other is the absolute cornerstone of white nationalism, and when that terror gets triggered by a harmless environmental condition like, god forbid, other people asking for rights, the allergy response can be deadly.) Other times, it's the other way around. Our internal immune systems, so well trained to protect ourselves and those around us from the insidious viral ravages of prejudice and oppression, start seeing traces of it everywhere.

And they freak out. And we suffer for it.

We talk a lot of well-deserved shit about TERFs, but it's useful to remember how much their nastiness feels to them like activism. Their immune system, trained and primed and sensitized over years of exposure to misogyny and sexism, catches the tiniest whiff of something that might seem at some point to have possibly been taken for male, and freaks out, because why is that trying to get into our system. Never mind that they're wrong. An immune system that flips out over penicillin is wrong, too. It's still trying to help, and it's still doing more harm than good trying it.

So bringing this back around to anti culture, which was absolutely where I started thinking about all of this this morning: anti culture, the terror of porn and the attempt by antis to protect themselves an other people from sexual content, is an immune response. It is a trained immune response, in people who have been taught and re-taught again and again that rape culture is a dangerous insidious virus that should be fought at all costs. And, right, there's more than a bit of 'the sexism virus infected this immune system and reprogrammed it to fight itself' involved here, but look, we are all of us infected with all of the viruses at least a little bit everywhere. If we tried to direct our immune systems to rip every last shred of -ism out of every last bit of us, we'd rip ourselves apart. Which is exactly the problem.

Porn, in and of itself, is natural. As natural as environmental pollen, and living near dogs and cats, and eating wheat or nuts or citrus fruit. It's even healthy, for a whole host of reasons that belong in another essay. And citric acid and nut-based proteins and whole grains are nutritious, and pets are physically and psychologically helpful, and being exposed to lots of different environmental substances as a child can actually help train your immune system in the first place. Porn can help us figure out what we like. It can help us figure out what we don't like. And while the processes that create it are sometimes unethical and awful, we don't condemn all dogs because puppy mills and dogfighting rings exist, even if we do have dog allergies.

What we see in anti culture is often a good-faith attempt on the part of antis to attack and subdue an environmental trigger that they read as dangerous. It's a panic attack over something that is by nature harmless or mildly harmful, blown out of proportion by the very instincts that are supposed to keep us safe. It's the response of an immune system that's been taught over years and years, by everyone from parents to school systems to the activists they look up to, that negative stimulus is to be feared, avoided, and fought. Of COURSE they're going to freak out.

And of course, early exposure to controlled amounts of allergens can help prevent later allergies from developing. Of course when kids are raised with abstinence-only education, sheltered from the very concept of sex, they're going to grow up allergic to it. (Of course they're going to try to protect other kids from the same, like worried mothers who refuse to let peanuts or wheat products or dirt near their precious babies, whose kids grow up with a whole suite of allergic triggers because their bodies never learned what was okay in the first place.) And no, that doesn't mean we hand pornography to ten-year-olds any more than we should give raw honey to an infant--but of course if our culture refuses to introduce kids to the fact that sex and desire and the inside of their own brain can be messy and silly and kinky and downright weird, we're going to have a higher rate of allergic reaction to the entire concept in adults.

I wish I had a better answer for what to do with understanding that this is what's going through so many people's brains. The best I have is a prescription for allergy-sufferers, who probably haven't read this far through this wordspew of an essay in the first place--but we all get a little hayfever once in a while, and we all sometimes run into content that makes us angry. So some thoughts on how to deal with metaphorical allergic reactions, inspired by the ways we deal with literal ones?

First: we recognize that what is happening is an allergy. The thing we're reacting to might be gross, or irritating, or even unpleasant, but the danger is not and never has been the thing itself. Whether it's triggering a response because of its similarity to an actively dangerous pathogen, or our immune system just doesn't like it, our aversion to one kind of story or another universally says more about us than about it. Luckily, we have a lot more control over our social responses than our biological ones!!! If vocal activism is our sociocultural immune system firing itself up to fight an infection that may or may not exist, then we get to tell our metaphorical white blood cells to stand down. We get to decide.

Second: we get some space. The funny thing about allergies is, while early exposure to allergens can help prevent them, re-exposing yourself to dangerous allergens after you've already developed a reaction to them can make them worse. Anaphylaxis is always more likely after someone's experienced it the first time. Repeated exposure to triggers, whether biological or psychological, can make the effects worse. So stop exposing yourself.

If something makes your throat itch every time you eat it, stop eating it. If something makes you mad every time you read it, stop reading it. Obviously this can be easier said than done in a world that's a lot worse about warning labels on stories than ingredients labels on foods, but that's why fic tags exist. And: sometimes, the croissant is delicious enough that we decide we're willing to suffer through the way the almonds make us feel, just this once. Sometimes the ship or the characterization or, hell, those other kinks that we really like are tasty enough that we'll put up with the trope we hate. We're allowed to do that. But we do it knowing there will be consequences, and we don't blame the baker when they hit.

We also don't have to blame ourselves. It sucks to be allergic to shellfish when all your friends are raving about the new seafood place. But that's not our fault any more than it's theirs.

Third: sometimes, if we need one, we go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Yes, really.

Not because there's anything really wrong with an aversion or even mild breakouts of hives, annoyance, and bitching in your friends' DMs--but it sure isn't pleasant, and sometimes your doctor might have a better solution than 'avoid it and take a Benadryl' that makes you feel a little better in the long run. And sometimes, it's not a mild breakout. Sometimes it's the kind of story that lingers with you for days, makes your skin crawl; sometimes your throat swells up and it gets hard to breathe. Sometimes we get angry enough about something we've read that we can't stand down our immune system, don't want to stop ourselves from writing that angry comment, that tumblr post, that abuse report to the mods for something that didn't actually break any rules. And that's dangerous, because when our immune response can flare out of control like that, we don't always know where and when it will happen next, and the risk of what we'll do if it happens gets way, way higher.

Sometimes it really is worth getting a second opinion. Sometimes you need somebody to tell you, "actually, it is not normal to get tingly and sweaty every time you eat potatoes." There are ways to train your brain and leash your white blood cells that I sure as heck am not expert enough to address. There are, it turns out, ways to feel better. There are ways to mitigate the damage your own well-meaning defense mechanisms might do to yourself or other people along the way.

And: we can take a deep breath when someone with an allergy to something we've baked, something we've written, something we like, is lashing out trying to protect themselves and everyone around them from something they've registered as a threat. Of course they're wrong. Yes, we told them there were tree nuts in the brownies ahead of time; yes, they chose to eat them anyway. But it can be worth reminding them and ourselves that there's a difference between "this thing is toxic" and "this harmless thing has driven my own system into a defensive response that sure makes it feel like I've been poisoned." And it can be worth reminding ourselves as well as them that sometimes, that difference can be really hard to spot.

[fcnch]

hi there! i'm finch, 20s. they/them. i'm semi active because life gets hectic, but i keep finding myself coming back to rp anyway. i haven’t done indie rp in a long LONG time, so bare with me while i figure it all out again, please. 

feel free to shoot a random meme my way anytime if you wanna jump into writing! just specify characters, please.

muses // wanted plots // open starters

last update: 03/29/22

guidelines:

i’ll only write with folks who are also 18+, preferably 21+. thanks for understanding!

i love a variety of genres, from slice of life to sci fi to fantasy to horror. romantic and platonic relationships are equally adored. i write all genders and any combination for pairings - however, for m/f, i will most likely want to write the male character. if you’ve got a certain gender you like to stick to for characters, that’s completely fine by me.

i'm open to most nsfw themes, but when it comes to smut, i'll only fade to black. i do write crime plots and some darker characters (typically in a horror setting). i try to tag all triggers!

i will not write: abuse, sexual assault, incest, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, eating disorders, suicide, or self harm. for personal reasons, i may be pickier with characters in law enforcement or healthcare based settings. please run any relapse plots by me first, as my tolerance for them varies. do not interact with me if you actively write sexual assault plots. this applies to sexual coercion, extremely unbalanced power dynamics, “dubious consent”, whatever.

banned fcs are all the usual suspects (i.e., assholes). i tend to pick my fcs entirely off vibes and gif hunts i’ve seen on my dash rather than any actual pop culture knowledge, so if i’m using someone who sucks and i don’t realize it, i would super appreciate it if you let me know! (even anonymously, if that’s easier)

feel free to jump straight into writing/replying to a starter or message me to plot first! whichever you prefer. starters are open to mutuals and nonmutuals alike. starters are always open, no matter how long they’ve been up.

i am multi-verse/multi-ship/etc - unless otherwise discussed, our threads will exist in a separate state from threads that character may have with other writers.

i default to small text, small to medium gifs, although i do often try to match my partner’s formatting to a certain extent. icons under 80x80 are difficult for me to see, as is doubly small text.

my response time varies wildly. please understand also that i may drop threads dependent on energy levels, muse, number of drafts, or any number of personal things - but the same understanding extends to you! no hard feelings and no worries either way if you choose not to respond, whether we’ve just begun or have been writing together for a while. rp should be fun!

looking forward to writing with you! 

[tonidorsay]

What is: Oppression

Oppression is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination. It is applied structurally and enforced personally. Social power is collective, found in law, in attitude, in policy, in practice, in the norms and mores that constitute “normal affairs”. Social power includes legal, governmental, economic, or simply the weight of socio-cultural mores, traditions, history, and norms — it becomes oppression, given force through Structure, institutionalize and written into the expectations and functioning to the benefit of those who are not subject to that oppression. Social power divides those who have some quality as being separate from those who lack that quality. The systems created by a society that benefits those with the desired qualities is called Structure. Language, law, religion, art, fashion, entertainment, and so forth work and presume the default of those qualities and reinforce the Structure as it is broadly conceived. In western social mores and norms, the qualities that are supported by social power are: Whiteness, wealth, masculinity, heterosexuality, sexual power, ableness, cisness, maleness, youth, education, Protestant faith, Christianity, aesthetic beauty of form, and/or familial status, singly or in any combination. Those possessing one or more of these qualities are functionally immune to social stigma as a result of being the default in that category of quality. They gain social privilege as a result of this immunity. They have increased Agency in society as a result. Those who are lacking in one or more of these qualities are subject to social stigma and structural limitations within the systems created by, for, and about those who are part of the variable social qualities that benefit from these systems. The more qualities one possesses, the greater the benefit from the system, and the less likely one is to be subjected to social stigma or consequence. This means that this increases exponentially with each aspect. Contrary, those who lack such qualities are, exponentially, subjected to greater stigma and fewer opportunities, as well as heightened consequences. This means a lack of Agency, and increase in Stigma, and an absence of Privilege. Aversion is the avoidance, escape from, retreat from, and effort related to those things. Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual statements made by disavowed people. It also includes not wanting those people in the restroom. Anxiety is the worry about or regarding, concern for safety relating to or of, and efforts relating to concern and worry relating to the object of anxiety. It is often incorrectly reduced to “fear”. One need not be afraid of something to be concerned about it. Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to a group disavowed. It includes prejudice against this group of people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom. Animus is intense dislike. A person who refuses to eat green beans because they really don’t like them, is demonstrating Animus. . It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing these disavowed people from being In the restroom by law or policy. When these three elements are applied to impersonal subjects, we often tag them as being mentally unhealthy and potentially disabling. Their use when it relates to groups of people creates the structural potential for stigma and the resultant shame that comes from being so stigmatized. This is generally called discrimination. By itself, discrimination does not create oppression. This is then combined with the social power of those who benefit from the oppression of others — safety, security, and peace of mind are the usual terms used to justify it. This prejudice and discrimination, enacted through stigma, reinforced by social shame, is violence, in and of itself, often done without consideration for its harm because it is seen as acceptable violence. When combined with Lust or Avarice, these things, singly or in combination, become tools of fetishization and exploitation. When outgroups — those who lack the qualities that are approved of — are oppressed, they are frequently exploited and objectified. These actions are derived from the stigma associated with them and the desire of those in power to resist conforming to the same norms. When members of those outgroups speak against oppression, they are subjected to interpersonal stigma, while those who benefit from one or more of the socially empowered qualities will display defensiveness and place blame for this defensiveness on the member speaking out. When a member of the outgroups conforms and is supportive of their oppression, they are rewarded with being excluded, on a case by case basis, from the outgroups, and given a slightly less stigmatized position. This is called collusion. Individuals have the ability to resist Structure as a social power through the use of Agency, which requires, first and foremost, understanding what Structure is and how it operates in terms of their particular benefits or stigmas gained, and how it functions to suppress or oppress them. Suppression is a social force that utilizes stigma as a tool to silence dissent, enforce conformity, and discourage Agency. An example of Suppression is altering and educational system to reduce the importance of art and critical thinking in favor of core mathematics, basic literacy, and economic labor participation skills (work). So “career colleges” are Suppressive tools of Structure, as are things like charter schools. These are enabled through the creation of choice vouchers, making such items tools of the Structure. A test of such would be a school that places less import on mathematics, basic literacy, and work skills, and instead focuses on artistic endeavor being socially or economically punished for doing so. If they are not, then they are not tools of Suppression. Another act of Suppression is when men engage in acts which are not considered manly. In addition to the stigma, they are encouraged to change and perform more effectively in conforming. Both the stigma and the encouragement are suppressive, even though, in this case, the subject benefits from the Structure — conforming provides the benefits to a greater degree than non-conformance does, thus creating a situation like down low behaviors. Suppression is often seen as being equal to Oppression, but is not. Suppression rewards benefits when it is overcome, oppression does not. Reverse racism is a Suppressive element of Structure. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, xenophobia, islamophobia, and so forth are all Oppression. There is no time, place, reason, or excuse usable to justify oppression as moral, ethical, decent, or acceptable. Oppression is active, ongoing violence.

[tonidorsay]

On where you miss the points

Racism is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards people who are not classified as “white” or of Eurocentric background or ethnicity. Misogyny is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards women or womanhood. Ableism is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination towards the disabled or mentally ill or disability or mental illness. Xenophobia is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards persons of another country or culture. Islamophobia is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards muslims or those who practice Islam. Biphobia is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards bisexual people or bisexuality. Transphobia is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards trans people or transness. Homophobia is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards gay people or gayness. Oppression is the combination of social power with aversion, anxiety, and/or animus, singly or in any combination. Social power is collective, found in law, in attitude, in policy, in practice, in the norms and mores that constitute “normal affairs”. Social power includes legal, governmental, economic, or simply the weight of socio-cultural mores, traditions, history, and norms. Social power divides those who have some quality as being separate from those who lack that quality. The systems created by a society that benefits those with the desired qualities is called Structure. Language, law, religion, art, fashion, entertainment, and so forth are all Structure — all social power. In western social mores and norms, the qualities that are supported by social power are: Whiteness, wealth, masculinity, heterosexuality, sexual power, ableness, cisness, maleness, youth, education, Protestant faith, Christianity, aesthetic beauty of form, and/or familial status, singly or in any combination. Aversion is the avoidance, escape from, retreat from, and effort related to those things. Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual statements made by disavowed people. It also includes not wanting those people in the restroom. Anxiety is the worry about or regarding, concern for safety relating to or of, and efforts relating to concern and worry relating to the object of anxiety. It is often incorrectly reduced to “fear”. One need not be afraid of something to be concerned about it. Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to a group disavowed. It includes prejudice against this group of people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom. Animus is intense dislike. A person who refuses to eat green beans because they really don’t like them, is demonstrating Animus. . It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing these disavowed people from being In the restroom by law or policy. Oppression is the use of threatened or actual social power against a group or community, that has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation, intentional or not. Violence is the use of threatened or actual social power against a group or community, that has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation, intentional or not. Oppression that is intentional is violence. Speaking is intentional. You cannot speak without having an intent. Your words carry meaning and subtext. Misgendering someone intentionally is violence. Catcalling a woman is violence. They are also oppression. They are transphobia and misogyny. In less than 1000 words you have just been taught a few things. All those “identity politics” are about Oppression. Oppression is violence. All the activism around “identities” is activism around oppression. It is all the same thing. Oppose Oppression. Support Human Rights. Now, apply those basic things above to your own life. When you post a picture of Melania half or fully naked and it talks about or suggests how she is less a good role model or good person because she is naked, that’s misogyny. That is violence. It doesn’t matter if you think that her husband is so bad that it is ok. You still fucked up. If you see a person talking about how they are “socially liberal” and they say they are opposed to abortion, they are being misogynist, because they are actively seeking to deny a woman a human right, and they are doing it on purpose, so it is violence. Everything you do and say and think and write you should be running through this filter of is it oppressive to someone, in some way? Even those who oppose human rights, who enjoy oppressive ideas, who celebrate and want to make them law. You know, white men. None of this is political.