#let’s study heterosexuality as a thing and not just as a default!

[bluedalahorse]

Earlier today I alluded to the fact that Young Royals has some interesting stuff to say about heterosexuality. Let me elaborate.

One of the many intriguing moments in Young Royals season 2 (in my mind, anyway) is the phone call where Jan-Olof asks August a lot of questions and ends with the question “Are you heterosexual?” To which August replies that he is. It’s only ever been girls! (I think that’s how the line goes, anyway.)

What intrigues me about this is the way it puts the emphasis on heterosexuality as a label—or, to put it more colloquially, on the idea of being heterosexual as a “thing.” After all, the whole notion of being straight or hetero is a fairly recent one in human history. The word heterosexual hasn’t been around too long, first appearing in German in 1869 after being coined (along with the word homosexual) by Karl Maria Kertbeny. In the late 19th century, western culture saw a shift in how people understood sexuality, and people started describing sexual orientation as more of an identity thing (who you are) than a behavior thing (what you do.) If Wilhelm’s family has been on the throne at least as long as the IRL Swedish monarchs, then the current Swedish monarchy in Young Royals predates the ideas of heterosexuality and homosexuality. The Swedish monarchy as an overall institution definitely predates heterosexuality as a concept. Social constructs, baby!

That said, Jan-Olof, the show’s keeper of tradition, still asks August if he’s straight. What he’s really asking, given the uncomfortable reproductive subtext of the conversation, is whether August is willing to produce a legitimate heir to keep the monarchy going. This is interesting because of the way it conflates heterosexual identity with reproduction. We know there are plenty of straight people who choose not to have kids and use various contraception methods to prevent pregnancies from happening or being carried to term. (Heck, August and Sara themselves have a whole conversation about condoms.) We also know that there are plenty of non-straight people who have biological kids. Ultimately, straightness doesn’t matter for that kind of thing! And yet, by including a question about heterosexuality in a series of questions that’s really about reproduction, wrapped in an even longer list of questions about fitness for the throne, this conversation is putting forward the notion that heterosexuality isn’t just about sex and romance. It’s also a political stance.

And that’s… that’s kind of fascinating. Usually it’s queer people who are said to be inherently “political.” Straightness, of course, is just as political. It’s just that no one calls it that. So I’m struck by the reversal of that dynamic in the show.

I’m also struck by how August’s heterosexuality is a matter of attraction, performance, and labeling, and each of these is addressed separately and a little bit differently by the writing. We know he has heterosexual attraction toward Sara (and possibly Felice, depending on how you read that relationship) based on the fact that he has ~those kinda feelings.~ But there’s also the public performance of heterosexuality, where we see August hitting on Felice in a very overt and aggressive way. In those moments, August’s performance of heterosexuality becomes an expression of power and privilege. This is further reinforced by some of the crude sexual jokes he makes about women. Even the softer stuff toward Sara puts him in a protector role that lines up with gender roles by the end of s2. If the performance of heterosexuality is an attempt to claim power, then what does claiming the label of heterosexual mean? I think perhaps we’re supposed to see it as August declaring his alleged right to power, within this particular social system where heterosexuality means something specific.

Labels can confer power on a person by giving them the power to define themself, but labels can also be limiting, in a way. August is, for the most part, straight in terms of his identity, behavior, and personal politics. He’s willing to claim the power and privilege that straightness gives him. However, there are times where his heterosexuality gets a bit fuzzy around the edges. That time where he’s (fakely) singing Simon’s praises and out of nowhere kisses him on the forehead comes to mind as kind of a weird moment. Like, where did that come from, August? The fact that August has watched the video of Wilhelm and Simon a few too many times also hasn’t escaped fandom’s notice. Finally, the fact that August labels himself as hetero in a scene where he’s lying through his teeth about other things, and when the palace is trying to fabricate a perfect princely persona for him, really shows how much of a social construct sexual orientation labels are. They describe something real, but they can’t describe all the nuances of it.

My point here is not that August is some sort of hidden bisexual representation sleeper agent—he really isn’t! (Like I said he is functionally straight, and also these moments above still involve him behaving in aggressive and dysfunctional ways.) Rather, I’m more interested in the way August ignores his own fuzziness-of-orientation (however minute) when claiming the strict heterosexuality label, and therefore cuts himself off from the possibility of empathy for Wilhelm and Simon, as well as enlisting himself in a system where he wouldn’t really thrive. Sure, there’s lots of other aspects of his personality that play a role in this as well. But I wanted to talk about this one today, so I did.

Anyway, binaries are harmful and divisive and reinforce weird power structures. Regardless of our orientations, we would all do better if we all embraced a degree of queerness in the world and in ourselves, don’t you think?

(Hey, are there other characters in the series where you want me to talk about their relationships to heterosexuality? Let me know with an ask or something; I’d be happy to ramble.)

[jointspointssolderedtogether]

I'm coming off of anon because I'm frustrated that the only people who agree with me on one thing (the lesbian masterdoc/ "comphet" are bullshit) don't actually read theory and don't understand the origins of the ORIGINAL, SEPARATE TERM "compulsory heterosexuality" and its vast utility. This is a long post. Please keep in mind these things:

1. I think the "lesbian masterdoc" is horseshit. "Comphet" is not real. It is a stupid idea that a teenager came up with that has caused nothing but more stupidity. I don't like it. I don't want it to be spread. I think it does nothing but confuse people.

2. I am a lesbian according to all standards of your blog. Do not call me bisexual.

3. Compulsory heterosexuality, as Adrienne Rich presents it, is the following (I'm quoting a secondary source meant for college underclassmen): "Compulsory heterosexuality refers to the impression, explicit or implicit, that people should be heterosexual else something is wrong with them. Compulsory heterosexuality can also take a direct form, especially for women; each year men and patriarchal economics pressure or force millions of women around the globe into marriage, rape, or concubinage. Even in its implicit form, compulsory heterosexuality costs many people--especially people who favor same sex desire-- great and needless suffering, and it has much to do with the tragically high suicide rate among queer youth. Insisting on compulsory heterosexuality is a way of protecting illusions that the increasing visibility of queerness puts in doubt." (How To Interpret Literature, Robert Dale Parker, pg. 193) (Disclaimer: I don't endorse all of the phrasing here, especially the usage of the word "queer". Do not ascribe those aspects of this quote to me or my beliefs. I'm using it because it is a good summary of the essay.) Notice how none of this says "there is a magical force that makes me want to fuck this kpop dude but actually I'm a lesbian". That's "comphet". They are distinct concepts. Compulsory heterosexuality is a useful term, "comphet" is not.

@sapphic-aesthete See point #1. I don't know for certain what Adrienne Rich's sexuality is and I don't care. The idea that only the in-group can write about the experiences of a group they potentially do not belong to is not useful. If that were the case, there would be no point of anyone talking about anything because the in-group would just be talking to each other in circles. It's actually encouraged for people to engage with things like Ethnic Studies or Disability Studies or Native American studies regardless of your relationship to the in-group because principles of those schools of thought are applicable to all people and matter to all people because all people have the potential to interact with those groups. It is the same with lesbian studies. I'm white and I've taken classes on Native literature because my partner is Native and I want to be as understanding and informed as I can be. I wrote about... you guessed it... Native topics and issues. Also, the essay isn't about exclusively lesbians. Like I just said, and as Parker says, the idea of compulsory heterosexuality is applicable to all women. This is the "universalizing" view that I was describing.

@2uvie See point #1. Nowhere have I said that that lesbians like men. Nowhere does Adrienne Rich say in her essay that lesbians like men, or that lesbianism is a reaction to heterosexuality. Compulsory heterosexuality says that being heterosexual is the default and the only correct way to exist. Adrienne Rich, in response to that idea, posits the idea of the "lesbian continuum". The lesbian continuum does not mean that bisexual and straight women are or can be lesbians. Let's go back to Parker.

"In the 1980s, Adrienne Rich (...) suggested tht there is a lesbian continuum, "a range--through each woman's life and throughout history--of woman identified experience," that fits somewhere on a lesbian continuum, regardless of whether "a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman". Rich's proposal attracted considerable interest, partly because, by naturalizing lesbianism and seeing it as routine, ordinary, and pervasive, it turns the tables on the naturalization of heterosexuality, and partly because some feminist and lesbian critics find it oversimplifying. They fear that it desexualizes lesbianism or mutes its specificity." (How To Interpret Literature, Robert Dale Parker, pg. 206)

Let's stop here for a moment. The phrasing of "woman identified experience" can be traced to the 1970s essay "The Woman-Identified-Woman" by The Radicalesbians. It's a good essay and is available online for free. It basically means solidarity between women outside of relations to men. A continuum has two ends. Exclusively woman-identified experience is one of them. No woman-identified experience is on the other end. Back to Parker.

"Rich's concept of a lesbian continuum has what the literary critic and queer studies scholar Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick called a universalizing implication. That is, it can apply to all women. (...) A minoritizing view (...) identifies queer or homosexual people as a minority. (...) At various points, according to the needs of the movement, the same people might adopt either a minoritizing or universalizing view.

Either view can be and often is used to defend or attack queer desire. From the minoritizing view, queer people might look like a minority that deserves respect--or, to some people, like one that deserves rejection. From the universalizing view, queer people mightbe anyone, and so deserve respect-- or, to some people, they might be anyone, and so all people need to look at others, and at themselves, with suspicion. Under policies that discriminate against queer people in housing or employment, for example, queer people are a minority with a distinct identity. Whether they participate in same-sex erotic acts or not, then can be denied an apartment or a job in the military or the classroom because of their orientation.

By contrast, under laws that make certain sexual acts, such as so-called sodomy, illegal, the act is the crime, not the identity. Such laws have a universalizing dimension, because any people who commit the act might be criminalized, regardless of how they understand their identity. To notice that distinction, however, is to observe, deconstructively, a Foucauldian distance between acts and identity. It means that acts are not a reliable signifier of a signified identity. That is, some people who identify as heterosexual are not sexually active or engage in (or have engaged in) same-sex erotic acts" (How To Interpret Literature, Robert Dale Parker, pg. 207)

We're not arguing on this point. We agree on it. I disagree with you all about the idea that compulsory heterosexuality is the same thing as "comphet".

See point #2. I'm going to ignore the rest of your attacking comments about my sexuality. I don't know anything about Sheila Jeffreys (?) so I'm not going to speak to that. Adrienne Rich's essay is not political lesbian shit. I don't know if she argues for that in other published work. Please link me to it if so. Regardless, that has nothing to do with compulsory heterosexuality and I don't like that so many of you are disregarding useful theory when you obviously don't have the understanding of it that you claim.

Actually read the shit you're talking about. It's useful. It's actually a pleasant experience to read theory. Don't keep conflating a useful term with its bastardization.

Also u dont understand adrienne rich whatsoever lol her idea of a lesbian continuum doesnt mean that she thinks "exclusively female attracted female" (or what we would call a lesbian) doesn't exist she conceptualized that as a response to heteronormativity and the idea that heterosexuality is a default. it's basically turning that on its head and centering lesbianism as a default. its a universalising and not minoritizing view of sexuality which is sooooo scary to people like u because u have no idea what essentialist and constructivist thought is and u piss yourselves if u have to open a dictionary. I dont even disagree with 90% of the things you say here please keep reading and if you are reading please try some better comprehension strategies. Jesus

Anyway comphet isn’t real. Go fuck yourself <3

[rantingcrocodile]

I still can't get over the thought that bisexuals are fine and that we oppress gay people.

It was much easier for me to accept that women were oppressed by men and absolutely no woman is lying or being dramatic about our oppression, but why can't I accept the same thing about bisexual people? It only took me a month to realize just how horrible misogyny is, but why is it taking longer for biphobia? Am I not bisexual? I'm so confused and frustrated.

Because the fact is that there are constant denials that women's class consciousness exists, even in the most right-wing spaces where women get together, they will recognise and complain about the male behaviour around them. They won't use the same terminology as feminists, but they know the same basic truth, even if they deny the causes.

When you peaked about misogyny, I can guarantee that you had your own experiences of women talking about what men are like. You'll have heard women complain about men not helping around the house. You'll have heard family members and friends describe the men in their lives as "useless" and other women agreeing about the men in their lives.

So when you already had that knowledge, when you came to feminism, all that you really needed was the connection as to why it was like that. You already had a foundation living as a woman and having interactions with other women, even if you didn't recognise what that was then. With feminism, you were given the studies, the explanations, the discussions and then it all fell into place.

Bisexuals do not have that.

There are no big, meaningful bisexual spaces. There's a denial of bisexual history, erased as being nothing but "gay" history. There's a denial of bisexuality as a unique sexuality, but as "confusion" or straight people just "lying." When in and around LGB spaces, only same-sex attraction was said to matter, so there's no discussion of bisexual attraction.

The heterosexual world wants to silence you and force you to "be heterosexual" and the LG world doesn't care about you unless you're seen to conform to LG experiences. You're told that you're basically just "straight" as default, but if you're in a relationship with the same-sex it's "trying to be oppressed" or still not as important as the LG and not to fully be trusted, shut up and just support the LG, you don't matter.

Bisexuals, on the whole, have been denied a full knowledge of what our bisexuality is, gaslit into believing we're "half-straight-half-gay" and not simply bisexual. We've been denied spaces for ourselves because we've been taught that we fall into two different categories and that our bisexual experiences don't matter and aren't enough to join us together, unlike every other oppressed group.

Then, you come to a feminist space, who claim to know about statistics, read plenty of texts, understand intersectionality, understand the complexities of oppression, and who are able to dissect so much accurately when it comes to misogyny - and then tell you to shut the fuck up about your bisexuality, that you're an oppressor. Who tell straight women that it's not their fault when men abuse them because of patriarchy and victim-blaming is misogynistic, that they don't have to accept partnering with men as inevitable, that all misogyny is wrong, that being misogynistic to any woman is an attack on all women, but then turn around and tell bisexual women that we're sluts and whores, that it's our fault that we've been abused, that we're destined to end up with men, that we're worse than straight people, that it's our fault that men do what they do.

So when you think that you've found a space that gets you as a woman, and that very same space is also denying you the truth about bisexuality, where they accept studies into misogyny but then decide that studies into bisexuality are "lies," where all other groups of women are allowed to define their own experiences and oppression, but bisexuals need to shut the fuck up and let straight and lesbian women tell us what our experiences are "really" like, and then any single mention of saying that biphobia is wrong is met with a barrage of manipulative "You're being lesbophobic!" lies to try and terrify us back into silence.

In the middle of all that, there are hardly any bisexuals actually telling it like it is. The few bisexuals that are listened to are the bisexuals that obsessively hate other bisexuals and deny, deny, deny biphobic oppression, and they're only listened to and uplifted because they're used as pawns to stop any bisexuals from actually thinking and demanding better treatment.

To be a woman is to be told to be small, quiet and prioritise men. To be bisexual is to be told that you're untrustworthy, predatory, a grotesque mongrel of heterosexual and homosexual, worse than your oppressor, and that you need to be silent at all costs, have no boundaries and allow everyone to walk all over you because you're worth nothing. Both of those things together is incredibly mentally damaging. Both of those together, without support, without others to tell you the truth and help you heal, makes it even worse and creates even more self-hatred.

And then you're told that anyone who is telling you the truth is hateful and wrong and shut up, everyone who isn't bisexual knows better. Go back to being a doormat. Take whatever anyone else gives you. You deserve it.

That's why it takes longer, and that's why you're confused. Because absolutely everyone else wants you to be confused.

As long as you're confused, you stay silent and keep letting everyone walk all over you, after all, and that's exactly what the world wants.

[incendiaryrequiem]

after much more deliberating than i assumed was possible here, its done. i have not only made the tiermaker, i also have extensive and accurate reasoning for each tier. lets go on a journey. also, a disclaimer: this post was written by someone not in the slightest attracted to men.

RED: the aroace and untormented by it tier. caprico gets no bitches because he locks himself up all day and is mean to everyone. he is fine with this. no bitches. does not fuck. luming, on the other hand, is mostly just a little guy. he sees bitches from his little pocket dimension or whatever. he does not get them. he does not want them. he does not fuck.

ORANGE: i feel this one is self explanatory. as much as i regret putting yeeso and vulture in a tier together, neither of those men want to be in the position theyre in. alas they are fucking losers. they do NOT fuck. momo on the other hand is the most heterosexual cat ive ever seen in my life. does not fuck regardless, the prospects are horrible. lets not dwell here and just agree that it is true

NOT QUITE YELLOW: characters in this category get bitches on purpose, but do not fuck for various reasons. nightbane and mercury are into the political maneuvering, you see. as much as i want to say nightbane gets no bitches, he probably does. hes a goth girl with no eye for red flags' dream. he does not fuck because he is a skeleton though. he doesnt have the sans undertale swag. as soon as the bitches find out he is a skeleton, they are OUT. mercury does not fuck because he does not want to, but bitches are endlessly useful in this power hungry world where the strong dictate the fate of the weak. he probably has a million diamond bitch mobile lying around. yueniang, on the other hand, has no ulterior motives beyond being a little asshole. he thinks getting bitches is funny. he is too pretty to actually fuck, though.

YELLOW: this category is for the men who undoubtedly pull bitches, but think they are an inconvenience. leonid and qin yi are public figures that have simps everywhere. do they WANT them? absolutely the fuck not. leonid is far too busy studying the stars to give any attention to the prospective bitches. do bitches hold the answer to ultimate beauty and truth? HELL no! qin yi gets similar levels of bitches, but he is far too busy maintaining all fifteen of his personas to actually fuck. he doesnt even want to, but in the scenario that he DID, he would be deeply afraid of sex. what if indulging in a bitch or two undid his carefully stacked jenga tower of lies? HELL for you my friend! wenren dian is too hot to not get bitches, but he does not want them. technically, his hell event should put him in the previous category, but i think that was a one off thing. "its not queerbaiting its saving the world" type shit. aeon is the exception. he doesnt think bitches are an inconvenience, i just think he arrived in miraland for the first time, got hit on, and did not know what to do about it.

GREEN: this category is generally the default, so im not going to explain any that are not already perfectly clear. mr. ande? you say. he gets bitches? hell no he doesnt! you say. normally id agree with you. however, unfortunately, the entirety of ninir is on some kind of fucked up juice that makes you unable to think about conventional attraction like a normal person. he is a judge. he gets bitches. he probably fucks too. its a sad microcosm of society explaining all that is wrong with the world. chi xiaolong, i am JUST now realizing, is a high schooler i think. disregard him. he doesnt exist. pretend he is not real.

BLUE: this category is for the men who dont get bitches on purpose, but fuck anyway. helz has serena, next question. modric? i mean look at him. he has soulful musician eyes. he thinks too much about his craft to think about getting bitches, but hes not the kind of guy who would turn a bitch DOWN if it meant having some fun. he takes life as it comes. dont ask me to explain old man hendrill. thats forbidden knowledge. corleone is a justiciar, and unlike yeeso, hes the strong silent type. i think whenever the group goes out to a bar, his whole vibe pulls whoever isnt attracted to zoey first. boylikers LOVE this dude.

this got incredibly out of hand. public apology to megaera for doing this on your post. unfortunately this needed to happen. anyway i voted qin yi march manwhore madness hes definitely more of a whore. (also for the love of god this whole post is a joke dont take it too seriously.)

[faedawayyy]

SIBLINGS I DESPERATELY WANT - FEMALES

the back stories are very specific but fc’s are up for debate, i guess. 

HADLEE QUINN TW: SEXUAL ABUSE 

21 or 22  OCCUPATION/STUDYING: up to you. SEXUALITY: up to you.

hadlee and brielle always had a rocky relationship. yes, brielle was the child of teen parents but they had hadlee four years younger at just 13/14. she’s gotten used to growing up with the bare minimum and still idolises her parents.  when brielle opened up about her dad, she refused to believe her. she idolises their parents and thought brielle was just attention seeking as usual. this fractured their relationship and bond even more.  now that brielle has moved out, she is starting to experience some of the stuff that her younger sister did. she’s just too proud/afraid to admit it because she feels like if she pushes away her parents, she’ll lose everything. personality: creative, individual, a little quirky at times, friendly but also quite emotionally detached and distant. she always wanted that picture perfect life in high school but was also sympathetic to the fact that her parents were poor and doing their best.

NATES SISTERS: THIS FAMILY IS SO PRECIOUS OMG.

LILIANNA ‘LILLIE’ HARWOOD

27  - 6TH MARCH, PISCES  OCCUPATION/STUDYING: it’s your choice SEXUALITY: asexual   lilianna is the oldest of the harwood siblings and she’s that cool older sibling that the other sisters so desperately wanted to be. she’s the trend-setter of the family and it’s pretty clear to see that taylor, posie, nate and evie have adopted personality traits of hers. she spent her teen years having to fight them off and lock her door to stop them from pestering her.  other than being witty and sarcastic, lilianna was born an over-achiever. she was the only one out of her siblings to attend a private school outside of the springs because she got the grade for a good scholarship. she then set her sights on cambridge for university to study medicine. nobody knows why, but she would put insane amounts of pressure on herself to be a good role-model for the others and was almost like a third parent.  in her second year at cambridge, she eventually burnt out and her mental health broke down. she couldn’t help but feel like she’d spent her early and mid-twenties working, stressing and over-achieving and she missed out on all of the messiness that comes with it.  a secret of hers is that despite being open about her sexuality since she was around 18, she’s never had a boyfriend or girlfriend. it’s just never happened for her and now she’s seeing her younger siblings date, she’s starting to feel pressured to find somebody. however, she feels like in such a sex-positive generation, it’ll be hard for her to find somebody who accepts her for who she is. she still lives at home by choice and nate’s parents are eager to normalise that young adults/twenty-somethings CAN still live at home. with lilianna’s anxiety still pretty rocky, they’d prefer it that way anyway.

TAYLOR HARWOOD 

26 - 21ST APRIL, TAURUS  OCCUPATION/STUDYING: acting and modelling  SEXUALITY: heterosexual 

if lilianna is the cool, trend-setting older sister then taylor is the *spice* in the family that her other siblings could sometimes do without. it shouldn’t be mistaken; ALL of the harwood siblings love each other and they’re probably as close as families come, but from the moment she was born, taylor had it clear that she was the star. think kim kardashian vs. her sisters; she’s the stand-out and loves to have all eyes on her. she’d be the one signing up for her school’s productions, forcing the others to put on shows for their parents and constantly stealing lilianna’s clothes to sneak out of the house in.  taylor was in stage school from a very young age and during her first year in high school, her mother agreed to fly out to los angeles with her and her agent to audition for different productions; this is where she landed vicotrious. everybody was excited for her and taylor was sure she’d got her big break. as everybody knows, victorious was a huge success and she became a household name at a very young age.  taylor dropped out of school and was schooled on set while she worked. their mother spent most of her time in los angeles while the other siblings stayed home with their dad. in what would have been taylor’s last year of high school, victrious was cancelled and ended. since then, it’s been a struggle to get any work and she eventually moved back home. this was a hard transition for taylor. she felt as if she was washed up at 18 and had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. she went back to school for her final year but was severely bullied by jealous girls and people who were eager to see her downfall from the start. one girl even rewarded her the “biggest has-been” award which completely humiliated her at her graduation after party. unlike lilianna though, rather than retreating and taking some time for herself, she threw herself into more smaller projects. she has a determination to make it and when she got into st judes, it felt like a new chapter for her. she’s already moved out and has her own apartment downtown but happily comes home to see her siblings as much as she can. her life’s goal is to make sure that nobody ever forgets taylor harwood.

POSIE HARWOOD 

25 - 5th AUGUST, LEO  OCCUPTATION: model SEXUALITY: heterosexual 

posie was named after her grandmother; josephine ‘posie’ harwood. compared to her other siblings - nate included - she’s always been more laidback. her parents (and lilianna) more or less dragged her through school kicking and screaming. she rarely had motivation to do anything and just wanted an easy life. more or less the complete opposite of lilianna and taylor.  since posie grew up under two huge personalities with big ambitions, she definitely got to fly under the radar a lot and neglected typical responsibilities you have to remember when you grow up. for example, she got away with dropping ice-skating when all of her siblings were made to stay in extra curricular activities, her grades were never as good as her sisters and all in all, she wore the ‘family disappointment’ badge with pride. she’s quite content with riding their coat-tails for as long as she can.  although lazy, posie is also extremely social and loves meeting people and having fun. she had the most typical teenage years with fake i.d.’s, a string of good for nothing boyfriend’s and riding on temporary highs. her siblings know her as soft and loving, but to people outside the family, she definitely has the label of being the more argumentative one.  when taylor was being picked on in school, it was posie who put things to rest by punching the girl in the face. when a boy broke evie’s heart, it’d be posie to serve him revenge. on top of that, she’s aware that she’s beautiful and her favourite thing to do is string people along, get what she needs from them and then move on to the next best thing.

EVELYN ‘EVIE’ HARWOOD  TW: GROOMING

18 - JANUARY 4TH, CAPRICORN  OCCUPATION: you pick.  SEXUALITY: you pick.

evie is the youngest of the family and adores every single one of her siblings, although by default she’s probably closest to posie and nate. like most little sisters, she’s got a bit of each sibling in her.  but alongside this, she’s also struggled to find her own identity and would often cling to the others in order to feel included and like she had direction in life. evie struggles with dyslexia - a common learning disability - and never found school easy. she’d always had tutoring and that was ramped up when it came to her exams. all of her siblings also pitched in to help her; lillianna with science, posie with english and nate with maths...taylor was a little too busy, but offered the moral support. she passed her exams and she still has it down as one of the best days of her life because she definitely thought she’d be the first one in the family to fail.  after seeing how much fun posie and nate were having at st judes, she decided to try her luck and was even more surprised when she was accepted there too. for the first time in her life, it felt like she was getting somewhere on her own and she was.  her first year at the school has been quiet and she’s struggled a little to form friendships without the guidance of her older siblings. the bigger personalities have definitely overwhelmed her but she’s slowly finding her feet. one person who has particularly been a good support system for her has been her tutor, who helps her manage her dyslexia when lectures and assignments come around. he’s always boosting her up and has at times let her get a better grade than she would’ve got by editing her assignments for her. there have been a few times where she’s been invited to his home; usually with a study group but the last few times have been just her.  she’s starting to feel slightly uncomfortable around him. especially since he’s been making the work harder so that she needs to rely on him more; he also sent her a christmas present this year in the form of a revealing dress and jewellery for her ‘christmas party’..which she isnt sure is fully appropriate.  while she doesn’t feel like she can open up and (quite frankly) is afraid to, it’s made her cling to her other siblings more than before.

[peachdoxie]

It’s always an experience to look back at myself as an adolescent and realize how much of my behavior was influenced by the fact that I am asexual and aromantic but didn’t yet know that.

In elementary school, I mostly wore t-shirts and pants of some sort. They were vaguely feminine, but not very much. To be honest, I don’t think I paid that much attention to what I wore in elementary school, though I was obviously influenced by external factors. But in the fifth grade (age 10-11) is I think when I started to actively reject femininity. It definitely happened once I started middle school (11-14). I opted more for a gender neutral look rather than a masculine look, though I didn’t think of it that way - just “not girly”. This trend followed me into high school (14-18), though around age 15 or so I got over my “not like other girls” mentality, which was never super strong but definitely present.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dress more femininely. There were times when I wished I could wear a blouse instead of a t-shirt and get a hair cut or something. I didn’t want to be super feminine and wear makeup or jewelry or whatnot, but the t-shirt look is hard to pull off and still be seen as mature and have people take me seriously as I grew older. I actually enjoyed the chances to look rather feminine when the circumstances allowed it – namely, dances at high school (until I stopped going to them entirely) and prom.

The problem was that I didn’t like the attention I got whenever I made a change. If I wore a nicer shirt one day, people would comment on it. If I got a hair cut, people would comment on it. If I did anything out of the ordinary, people would comment on it. And save for social situations that were intended for fancier clothing, such as school dances, I did not like the attention. At all. It was mostly from teachers and other female friends who were genuinely nice about it, not even unwanted attention from boys or men. It didn’t help that I went to a small K-12 school, meaning I was with the same 100-odd classmates every year and regularly encountered my old teachers. There were no good transition moments to make any changes besides summer, and even then I didn’t.

I used to wear my hair in a ponytail all the time – initially just to keep it out of my face, but then because I did that constantly, any time I would wear it down on a normal day, someone would comment on it. It got to the point where I would keep it in the ponytail all the time. It was somewhere past my shoulder most of the time. One day when I was 15, during my regularly scheduled hair cut, I decided to cut off enough inches to donate the hair and my stylist straightened my hair for it. It was cut to a bit above my shoulders. I wore it down the next day at school and got a lot of compliments about it. It made me so uncomfortable that I put it back in a ponytail the next day.

(I eventually got so sick of the ponytail and the way it made me look too gender neutral that I forced myself to get it cut short enough that I couldn’t put it in a ponytail and I just dealt with the discomfort until my shorter hair was normalized.)

It did vex me, back then, why I didn’t like any attention that focused on how pretty I looked whenever I made some change to my physical appearance. I didn’t think that it was because I didn’t think I wasn’t pretty and that’s why I didn’t like the attention – I was fairly aware of how body image problems in teenagers worked, and to my recollection, that never played a big role in my dislike of attention. I knew I had good skin and pretty eyes and did think my face was pleasing when I looked in the mirror. And rejecting femininity a bit helped me find solace in not conforming to beauty standards. I also must give credit to my mother, who was nothing but supportive and never pressured me to perform femininity, and neither really did any of the other adult figures that had a significant influence on me, which certainly helped.

As an adult who has studied queer theory and feminist theory, and who has reflected on my experience as a young acearo woman, I’ve come to realize how much my sexual and romantic orientations impacted me in this regard. It resolves the paradox of wanting to be more feminine-presenting to look more mature while simultaneously dreading any attention I’d get for making a change towards femininity.

To a younger me, any attention to my appearance when I presented even a tiny bit femininely meant that it increased the chances that a boy might ask me out. Not hit on me, but ask me out. It was one of the interpersonal things I dreaded the most during high school. I did not want a boy to ask me out because I knew I would say no because I wasn’t interested in dating. I was desperately afraid of making things awkward between me and whoever it was, because the boys that were most likely to ask me out (in my mind) were the boys I was close friends with. In my mind, knowing that a friend of mine in high school had a crush on me was a terrifying prospect – knowing that I had rejected them while they were still “in love” with me. The influence of media was definitely there, as I’d seen way too many Disney Channel TV shows and movies where the guy was rejected by the girl and it made things awkward. I didn’t want to lose any of my friends that way. (I won’t go into details, but my reluctance to date anyone did end up backfiring on me and I did lose a friend, though that was largely due to my own awkwardness on not understanding why I was so reluctant to date anyone.)

The romance part would have been okay-ish, but at that point I didn’t yet have a split-attraction model to go on and so, to me, any act of dating would necessarily involve holding hands, cuddling, and kissing, and possibly sexual activity, all of which I knew as early as age 11 that I did not want. And because I was repulsed by the idea of physical and sexual intimacy, dating was out of the question. I knew it was okay to not want to date anyone and to not want to have sex with anyone, during high school or ever, because my mother had raised me to think those are valid options (thanks Mom), but at the time, I didn’t have a concept of what being sex-repulsed was.

I think that made it difficult and uncomfortable for me to process the idea that someone could be sexually attracted to me. I wasn’t so ignorant to believe that other people were also repulsed by sex and I knew other people enjoyed sex, especially teenagers. But the mere idea that someone could view me in a way related to sex – even if they didn’t want to act on it – was so unsettling to me that I couldn’t stand it. I don’t think it was about being seen as a sexual object by boys, since those were easy to turn down (and I did have a few male classmates ask me out), but rather seen as being sexually attractive to boys I already had a good friendship with.

Also, while I was aware of homosexuality from a young age and had no problems with it, there were no girls out as wlw while all of this was going on, so it didn’t occur to me to be wary of their attraction. I knew as well that I wasn’t interested in girls, so – because my framework was “straight or gay” without a concept of asexuality – by default I must be interested in boys, and them with me. There’s also the gendered stereotypes of girls sharing everything with their girl friends, but not sharing emotional intimacy with boys. But most of my good friends were boys, and so if I were to be emotionally intimate with any of them, I’d have to date them.

Of course, I lacked the knowledge and self-awareness to figure all of this out until much later, and it took longer to come to terms with the relationship I had between femininity, others’ sexual attraction, and my own self-image (though none of that is static, nor should it be). I also lacked the awareness that the boys I was friends with who might be interested in asking me out might also not be interested in a physical and sexual relationship. I didn’t have the concept that an emotionally intimate relationship in high school could be anything but physical or sexual. I think a lot of it came down to the fact that I didn’t know how to process any potential awkwardness, but I wasn’t fully aware of my inability to process it, so I just avoided it as much as I possibly could. Looking back, there were definitely some contradictions in how I thought and behaved, but hey, I was a young and socially awkward teenager navigating an uncharted territory that I didn’t know was uncharted.

Besides being fairly vocal to my friends about the fact I wasn’t interested in dating (which I explained away by saying “I don’t want to be distracted by dating during high school”, such a typical excuse of non-straight folk) the best weapon I had against people finding me attractive was to downplay my appearance. And so I desexualized my appearance – or, rather, maintained the neutral appearance I’d had from elementary school and made it even less attractive to boys (at least, in the opinion of my adolescent self.) Any act of femininity that was noticed by a teacher or female classmate was something that could be noticed by a boy in my high school, which meant that they may be inspired to ask me out, which meant sexual attraction, which was repulsive and uncomfortable to me.

I hold no ill will towards myself for not understanding this when I was a teenager, and I don’t blame any of the authority figures or educators in my life for not helping me understand this. It’s likely they didn’t understand any of this themselves, and it’s not like I was fully aware of why I felt certain ways and did certain things either, nor was I very open about all of this either because I can be a rather private person at times. It’s also not like asexuality, aromanticism, and sex-repulsion are well-known things, let alone discussed frequently in books about childrearing and queer adolescents. It’s just another sign of how the hyper focus on heterosexual monogamy (also known as amatonormativity) in Western culture and society actively hurts queer people, especially when they’re young and aren’t aware that they’re not straight, or are but are struggling to come to terms with that (it also applies to non-cis folk, but that’s not relevant to my experience.)

Ultimately, I see my struggles with gender presentation and interpersonal relationships, and the stress they caused me, during middle and high school as a symptom of our culture and society’s failure in general to represent a wide variety of queer experiences – particularly outside of lesbian, gay, and trans identities – to young people so that people like me can better understand themselves. I can’t deny the fact that the social norms about dating and relationships in high school that I found in the media I consumed had a major impact on me, to the point where they sometimes contradicted how my mother tried to raise me. This post is in part a reflection on myself that struck me recently, but also yet another piece of evidence about how the lack of representation for ace and aro people actively damages our lives.

[an-avid-reader]

Legend (#1) - Marie Lu

my rating: 4/5 stars

In a world where the Patriots/Colonies and the Republic are at odds and there’s a plague in the poorer parts of the US, Day is an unstoppable street criminal with good intentions. When his family’s house gets marked by Republic soldiers, Day’s only thought is to steal a cure before his family member dies. June is a top student at Drake University—a prodigy. When her brother, Metias, gets caught in a cross-fire during a mission, June is fast-tracked to becoming a soldier. Her first mission: track down Day. As Day and June come from such opposite backgrounds, is it possible that their paths would’ve crossed otherwise? 

Link to Goodreads // Spoiler-free review below

It felt so weird to switch this book from “to-read” to “reading” and now to “read” on Goodreads—this was the first book I placed on my virtual tbr and now, 6 years later I’ve read Legend! Honestly, I didn’t know much about this story going in, besides the fact that it’s a dystopian trilogy...and that, after reading a bunch of those stories, I was skeptical going into this book however I was still really excited to pick it up and I’m glad that I did! 

Legend alternates between Day and June’s perspectives and we get to see how drastically their lives are; when their worlds collide it was super fascinating, even though they put A LOT of trust from nowhere into each other. I sort of wish we got a few chapters from other characters, such as Commander Jameson, Thomas, and Tess, but of course without ruining the story. The other reason I didn’t give a full 5/5 was because I was able to guess bits of the twist pretty early on, albeit I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out until we came to that part of the story. (We also gotta leave some room for improvement for the subsequent books!)

So the main premise of the story is that there is a war between the Colonies/Republic and the Patriots. To be completely honest, I still can’t really explain why this war occurred, nor what either’s agenda is (except for maybe power, but in terms of politics I’m ???). One reason why I wish we got more POVs is to explore this issue a bit more, and what their motivation is—if two Patriots were in the same room, would there be a way for them to connect with each other (assuming that this is a large society), for example. There were some details that were slowly brought out, such as the coin found by Day’s father (which is incorporated into a very clever manner). To be completely honest, the one thing I took away from the political scene is how cult-like the US in this book (but also irl—I’ve never seen another country where pretty much everyone has their country’s flag on their front lawn or uhhh worship? their flag).

The other minor but also major detail is the virus (or the plague, but it has to be treated with a vaccine, therefore it’s a virus). We know that there’s a plague, and of course, the poorer parts of the rEpBuLiC, such as Day’s neighbourhood, are affected heavily, but that’s pretty much the extent that we know. I wonder if Legend was written/published today (or next year, let’s say), would the plague be different—would people be wearing masks, for instance?  What are the symptoms of the plague (I think there was some coughing and fever)—how do you know for sure it’s the plague and not a common cold or the chicken pox, for example o.O I definitely felt like I was over analyzing details at times because I was able to pick up on Lu’s foreshadowing pretty early on. 

Brief comment on Lu’s foreshadowing—she is clever in the sense that sometimes the details are right in your face, but you don’t realize it until a significant event happens. Sometimes it’s a really important part of the story, other times it’s just a subtle detail, like the coin. You can tell that Lu most likely planned Legend meticulously, and I’m sure that the next two books are crafted with this precise manner. I’m sure this is the type of book that when you reread it, you can pick out all the details that were planted along the way (or maybe I’m over analyzing again).

Something else that I appreciated in this book is that, although this is dystopian, it doesn’t feel like those typical dystopian tropes are there, if that makes sense. Yes, there’s a romance (and maybe a tad of insta love), but it’s not the driving factor of the plot. And there’s no love triangle (*throws confetti*). Besides the war and thus, the division of the population, the most obvious dystopian feature is the Trial—this is when you turn 10, you must take a test (physical, mental, and an interview). Based on your score, you either get placed into highschool, university, or you’re sent to labour camps if you fail. Honestly, as messed up as the Trial is, it’s almost like a reality today. I feel like people who are just entering middle school are already set on studying medicine or law, when at that age, you should be idk enjoying life and maybe start putting effort into what you enjoy, not choosing a career. Anyways, those are my 2 cents. 

Although Legend is written from our two main characters, I love how different their dynamic was, which made the story much more interesting. From Day’s point of view, I liked that we got to see the pain he feels for his family. I also appreciated Day’s relationship with Tess, who I feel like they’re more like brother and sister (and I’m glad there isn’t a love triangle...at this point of the trilogy anyways). While Day is a criminal, he’s such a softie when it comes to the people he cares about, whereas when he’s on a ‘mission’ he’s very sly. From June’s point of view, we are introduced to Thomas (which I thought he was like a butler but oop that’s not right), Metias (her brother), and Ollie (their doggo (yes?)). At first, it seems that June is like this kick ass girl, who is super young (ish, she’s 16) and she’s a trouble-maker, but I feel like her peers respect her. One thing I noticed is that June is such a compassionate person—I’m not sure how to explain it, but she’s more “human” than Commander Jameson, for example. Her element of humanity and being able to analyze a situation/emotions within a few minutes, it was super impressive—I feel like she makes working for the Republic very easy. We only get a few glimpses of her and Metias together, but what we see is so wholesome—you can tell that Metias is scared/deeply cares for his younger sister. And there’s Thomas...from the gecko he gave me weird vibes but man he is such an icky man. Also, seeing as June is a prodigy, it’s almost like her uh ‘bosses’ (?) treat her as a prized possession, which 100% made me feel like (more on that in the spoiler section below). For once, I didn’t really mind the insta love between June and Day, though whilst I was reading the book, I was a bit frustrated because I could see exactly where the story was going (I see you, Lu, I see you).

Finally, I appreciate that Lu’s characters are people of colour, specifically Asian/asian-mixed. I obviously can’t speak on her behalf, but I’m glad that she didn’t conform to the “norm” or “default” as she is Asian-american herself. Furthermore, I think it gives younger people the encouragement that yes, you can be an author, you don’t need to be a heterosexual, cis, white male. (I’m sorry for the crappy explanation, I guess what kinda sucks is that she had to explicitly mention it in the book). ANYWAYS moving on, I appreciated this book, though I didn’t really know what to expect from it. To be completely honest, I was also scared to read it because it had been on my TBR since 2014 (oops), but I think that in the end, it’s good thing I waited to start this trilogy; I think that otherwise, this would’ve been same-old-same-old vibes to other dystopian books/trilogies I’ve read in the past. I’m excited to see where the trilogy takes us and I’m excited to see how Lu will further develop our main characters, as well as see how her writing style changes over time!

If you’ve read this book, I’d love to know what your thoughts are, did you like this book or not? (and if you’ve read the other two books, did you find that overall, the series gets better/what book is your favourite from this series?).

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you are having a legendary day (sorry, I had to), wherever you are in the world!

~ Cassandra / an-avid-reader

-

I’ve decided to include a spoiler section of my reviews; continue reading for some spoiler-y content (you have been warned)

SPOILER SECTION BELOW

While I could see it coming that June was going to betray Day, she felt so bad when she called the cops on his family. Again, this goes back to the humanity thing. The fact that she actually listened to Day (and I guess respected him?) as opposed to merely judging him for “failing” his Trial and being poor is commendable. To be honest, I’d like to think that they had mutual respect for each other, Day has his reputation, and June unexpectedly kicked Kaede’s butt in the ring. I feel like there’s so much to uncover, there’s something so fishy with their government, and I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg. It makes me think of what other contraband exists, besides the pendent/coin. Also, side note, isn’t one presidential term = 4 years, and the Elector has been the leader/uh President for 11 terms? I don’t remember it being mentioned, but I feel like the next Elector would be his son, sort of like a dictatorship…

Speaking of the fight scene, I’m honestly surprised that June didn’t put the pieces together. When she met Day for the first time (for the cure deal), she noted his dialect/the fact that he used the cousin. We’re not told how many other people use the same slang, nor do we encounter another character (such as the older man who helped Tess and Day early on in the story), using that slang. Thus, when Day said cousin in front of June, I’m surprised that she didn’t question whether that was Day or not. Then again, I feel like she needed more hints to corroborate her hypothesis—I’m just surprised that it didn’t even cross her mind, I guess. 

June = prized possession? Aka Thomas kissing her *vomits* I assumed that Thomas was an older guy, again, like he was her butler/guardian because her parents are dead. (LIGHTBULB MOMENT - we know that the Republic just kills people, so is it possible that Day’s father is still alive? We know for sure his mom is dead because she got shot in the head by none other than T h o m a s, but maybe there’s a chance that Day’s father was still alive). I feel like June was just even more ruplused when she found out that Thomas was actually the killer of her brother; I wonder if that’s what made him so “cold”, as June referred to later on in the story. Was he brainwashed or something? Commander Jameson gives me these weird vibes, like she has a bigger role in this story, but we don’t know yet. And then during the ceremony after June caught Day, there was Chian, Metias’ mentor (most likely also a snake) who was kinda hitting on her, and then there was the Elector’s son! I’m just speechless, can these people not force themselves onto June?? If she didn’t meet Day, would she fall for one of them, or would she just live her best life (part of me hopes for the latter, all those guys are creeps).

I also find it convenient that June knew exactly what to do with the computer/with Metias’ message? Albeit, she is clever (when her judgement isn’t clouded lmao). I knew that the letters were going to be a scramble, but I would’ve never thought it would lead to a website. Also, how was Metias sure that June would read through his stuff? If he were still alive, would he have told June about what he found (ever)? And how did he get wrapped up in all of this? So many questions!! Anyways, I guess that the two of them had a similar way of going about things/thinking similar enough so that they could find clues like that without raising too much suspicion (even though June did end up getting caught towards the end). 

One of the ways that Lu was able to sneak in some foreshadowing is when we’re in Day’s POV and we learn about his older brother, John. I remember that there was something along the lines of “oh we look so similar, it would be easy to mistake one for the other” and that sort of raised suspicion for me, which was confirmed when John sacrificed himself to let June and Day (and the others) escape. I didn’t catch that Day’s pendant was a coin, however, that was really clever. I wouldn’t say that being able to spot these things early on made me dislike the book, but it did take away the element of surprise. 

Onto book #2!

[scaip]

On my 25 years I realize that I can't fully grasp the concept of flirt.

Sometimes, before the pandemic, I'd be talking with some dude, with good vibes around us and people (other women, particularly) would assume I'm trying to flirt. But just no???! (Let's start from the basic fact that I am very bad with face-to-face interactions)

Sometimes, you just want to talk with somebody, or break the ice, or a person gives you positive vibes. And none of those things mean it has to be a romantic interaction. People also want to make new friends, to get along well with work colleages, with people from the same class. It doesn't has to be necessarily romantic.

It annoys me. A girl getting close to you doesn't mean she wants to flirt. Heterosexual behaviour by default is wrong. I smile because I want to look approachable. My voice is high-pitched because that's just how it is. Men are not entitled to it. Other people watching don't have to say I'm trying to flirt.

I see lots of progressive leftists claiming mottos about deconstruction and open-mindness, but can't play them in real life. It is particularly annoying when interacting with people who study and work on anthropology (my field), because it makes it hard to interact.

[masterstrange-closed]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 / 616 inspired au.

Please note that while a vast majority of this verse comes straight from the canon 616 biography of Stephen Strange, there are elements and head canons that are strictly my own mixed in. So, do not use this as a source for any other means than interactions with my muse. This is also the default verse I will use for most Marvel characters that are not MCU affiliated, but also open to MCU muses as well as an AU.

Stephen Strange was born November 1st, 1930 to Beverly and Eugene Strange while the pair were on a holiday out of town in Philadelphia, away from their farmhouse in Nebraska. He had three siblings, Donna Strange (1932), April Strange (1934), and Victor Strange (1937). April died before her third birthday due to ailments that medicine at the time were not equipped to handle, nor could the family really afford anything that did exist as the Great Depression was in it’s early days. Stephen has only a fleeting memory of her, but he would have been only six by the time she died. As per their father’s wishes, only a few photos of her remained in the house as the memory of losing her was too painful for their parents to confront day after day.

A couple years later, he began facing terrible nightmares — his parents believed it was caused by the stress and sadness of losing his sister, and being too young to fully understand what was happening. While that might have fed things, what was actually happening was far more sinister. Somewhere far away, a man known as Yao — the current sorcerer supreme, had seen a prophecy. His successor had been chosen, and it was none other than the young Nebraskan child. Of course, it would take years before he was ready to take on this mantle — but the news of this angered one man in particular. For Yao had a disciple, one who believed that the role of Sorcerer Supreme belonged to him. This man was Baron Karl Mordo, and desperate to secure his legacy, he began an assault on the young boy through a psychic connection. Every night, attacking him and plaguing him with night terrors that might push the child to another path. That might make him crazy and unable to take what he believed to be his!

Yao eventually realised what was happening and stopped Mordo, vowing to protect the child. He also decreed that Mordo was too dangerous to be kept unsupervised and also decided to keep him by his side to watch him. To keep his enemies where he could see them. However, the damage was done, and even without Mordo intervening, the night terrors were here to stay. After suffering night after night for what felt like an eternity, Stephen eventually found a solution of sorts. Unfortunately, it came in a bottle — copying what he saw his father do after a long stressful day, he began to drink in secret.

Years passed, and eventually Stephen found his life’s calling (with the aid of Donna and a rollerskating mishap), like his father before him — he wanted to pursue medicine, and he was determined to make it so. Perhaps then, he could gain the approval from his parents he desperately wanted. He graduated school with honors, and awards that were enough to get him into a good pre-med program in New York City. The first year away was a taste of the difficult road ahead, Stephen studied long and hard, but his stress was at an all time high. Luckily for him, he knew far too well how to numb himself to it by now.

Around his nineteenth birthday (1949, second year of college), Stephen came home to visit his family for a long weekend. While home, Donna wanted to show off her ‘cool college brother’ to her friends down by the lake — having missed his sister’s company while away, he agreed. This would become one of his greatest regrets, as the day was fated to end in tragedy. Donna and Stephen decided to race with some friends in the water, but after awhile, Donna suffered a severe leg cramp. She was far from shore, and the time of year made the water colder (even though it was still mild that year, weather wise), and as she tried to make her muscles work, the combination of the cramp, the water temperature, her panic and trying to call for help, tired her to the point where she could no longer keep afloat. Stephen eventually dragged her from the water, but it was too late. His sister was dead.

Stephen grew colder after that day, he blamed himself for not being able to save her — and as she had been the catalyst for his career choice all those years ago, she became the motivation that pushed him to extremes to succeed. He refused to fail, to lose someone because he failed to act in time or properly. It became a matter of pride over the years. A combination that worsened as his mother grew ill and passed away, followed by their father years later. His sister April, had also passed away years ago because of medicine failing her. People kept dying around him, and he couldn’t stop them. This pushed him, motivated him through school and into his career.

His father, he decreed, was the final straw. He couldn’t bring himself to go to the deathbed and bury another person he loved. So, he lied. He told his brother he couldn’t get there, and to drown out the pain and guilt, he went out. Got happily drunk and took someone home to distract him, but the distraction fell short when he found his brother in his apartment. Furious and betrayed, the two of them argued before Victor stormed out. Stephen went to follow him, to try to make amends and make him understand, but he never got the chance to. For Victor had accidentally stumbled into the street as he tried to get away from him and into oncoming traffic. Stephen, unable to cope with another loss, went to extreme measures to save his brother’s life. He knew current medicine was lacking… but he if he could keep him on ice, frozen until a time where perhaps medicine could save him, then he had to try. He failed everyone else, he refused to fail Victor too. How could he let his baby brother down once more?

The final bit of innocence he held had died, Stephen Strange had no more room for lost causes. He only took bets he could win, he only took patience he could save. Of course, he also thrived on a challenge — had that not been what motivate him here in the first place? He took the unusual cases, ones he knew he could win — but would be very difficult and extremely noteworthy. He reasoned, his issues in the past had been emotional. He had let himself be too attached to his work. So he distanced himself, he viewed patience only as medical problems. His original spark for choosing medicine was gone. Only arrogance and dangerous coping methods remained.

His drinking never ceased, he had picked up smoking too. While he was always upfront about what he sought after in relationships with partners, more often what that was were meaningless hookups or dynamics in which they both had something to gain. He was spending his days pioneering medical breakthroughs, earning success and accolades. By night, he was a sad man who needed a distraction, who was never satisfied and tried to numb the ghost that haunted him. He had a few love affairs, but they all ultimately ended. Not to mention, he held certain “urges” (re: non-heterosexual fantasies and feelings) that he couldn’t bring himself to face or admit to, as it was now the 1960′s. Life was becoming increasingly hard for Stephen, but he seemed to have it under a degree of control. As long as he kept himself together when it mattered, who cared if the mask cracked in the off hours? He was heading for disaster, and that was exactly what was going to happen.

February 2nd, 1963: to this day, it’s unclear what the exact cause of the accident was. The initial report, said that the poor weather conditions had made the road unsafe and the accident was entirely just that. An accident beyond anyone’s control. Some people, further into the investigation, once Strange was in medical care realised that the man wasn’t exactly sober behind the wheel, and perhaps this was a perilous example of driving under the influence. Yet, even now, years later a voice still whispers in Stephen’s ear when he’s alone at night; when he’s run through or weak that says: but what if it was on purpose, and the only accident was remaining alive? No matter what the case was, the result was the same. Stephen’s accident had come at the cost of his hands. The bones broken, nerves damaged beyond repair. As a surgeon, as any doctor would have forced to accept, there was no coming back from this. His career, and by extension, his life was over.

Thousands upon thousands of dollars were spent, even ones he didn’t actually have to spend, were poured into Stephen’s quest for some cure that would save his hands, eleven different operations, ones that included untested, and even some illegal, methods and surgeries and substances — all coming up with nothing but a worsening condition. He was in a debt he’d never be free of, and bills were piling up. What happened, was of no surprise to anyone — he was evicted from his home. His belongings seized to repay his loans and bills. With only a small backpack and a limited amount of cash — Stephen Strange was homeless.

He spent a year in and out of shelters, unable to find work (both due to his disability and his pride) before being fully cast out onto the streets. Much of what he had taken with him, was sold or traded for food and warmth. He could often nick a bottle or smoke from workers by the docks, who would sometimes give him dock work when they could find something he could manage. His hopes were dwindling, and Stephen gave up. Winter was coming, and he made peace with the knowledge he would not survive until spring one way or another.

However, that changed when he overheard the dock workers one day. Talking about claims of a Tibetan monk who had the ability to heal the “un-healable”. Something Stephen scoffed at, until he recognized the face of the man making the claims. A man named Pangborn who had once come to his clinic for treatment, but Stephen had turned him away as his paralysis was incurable… but was now standing in front of him and doing athletic feats that were impossible. Stephen used the last of his money, to book cheap passage to Tibet. His hope restored on the promise of what did he have to lose? If it was a lost cause, what did it matter if he died in New York or if he died in Tibet? He was nobody now. It made no difference.

The journey was long and rough, but eventually… haggard and beaten down, Stephen finally found himself on the steps of a large palace. He was admitted inside, and finally came face to face with the man who had saved him long ago, Yao.. or as he was known by everyone, The Ancient One. Stephen pleaded with him to save him, but he offered no medical miracles, only the study of mysticism. Claiming that had been what cured Pangborn. Dejected, furious, Stephen was heartbroken. His final glimpse of hope dashed by a charlatan and some magic tricks. He wanted to leave immediately, planning his final journey… but a blizzard struck unexpectedly, forcing the Ancient One to insist he spend the night until it cleared.

The whole time, he noticed Baron Mordo watching him closely, and couldn’t shake the feeling he had seen him before. Perhaps this was what led Stephen to catch what the other man was plotting, an attempt on his master’s life! Forced to involve himself, Stephen’s doubts about magic subsided quickly as he faced things he believed to be impossible. Once Mordo had been subdued, Stephen’s change of heart made him accept the offer to learn at the Palace, which he learned was actually a sanctum known as Kamar-Taj.

For years, Stephen studied along side Yao. His impressive affinity for magic, and his closeness with the Ancient One, prompted Mordo to officially leave the Sanctums and go rogue. Once he had learned all he could in Tibet, Yao informed him the rest of his studies were back home in New York City. Placing him in charge of the sanctum in Greenwich Village, Stephen was on his way to fulfilling his destiny. Years passed, as his connection with magic grew, he felt changes in his body become more apparent, but for the first time — he had a purpose, one that was noble and fulfilling. One that wasn’t born out of fear or personal desire.

As the years passed, it became clear that Stephen was ready for the final test: facing Death himself. At the end of this, The Ancient One was at peace, knowing his time on the physical plane was at an end and was finally ready to transfer the role of the Sorcerer Supreme to his pupil. Stephen inherited everything, including his ageless life, Stephen Strange was finally Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and Master of the Mystic Arts.

For the most part, Stephen spends his days battling the mystical and multidimensional to keep the world safe. He became well known as a Mystic in Greenwich, to whom people could turn to when having issues with the mystic world. He has amassed himself a small group of friends, although the nature of his world and his demeanor often strain these relationships at times. He is friendly with the Avengers and other heroes, as well as maintains connections with other sorcerers; but he is not affiliated with the official Avengers at this time. He never knows what’s going to happen, but what he has learned with his infinite life is that not knowing is half the reason to live in the first place.

[s-cornelius]

Defining Queer: An Ontological and Epistemological Discussion of Queerness

To start with, I’m not a philosopher and I’m not a sociologist. I’m just a linguist who likes to talk about stories and use jargon-y words. I’ve been in fandom (in some form or another) since the late 90s, and I’m a bisexual/queer ciswoman married to a man. I say all of this so you understand where I’m coming from (my positionality, if you’re nasty).

I’m writing this piece because I see a lot of people in fandom spaces using terms like “queer”, “cishet”, “queerbaiting”, and others. I find use of these terms to generally be vague, misleading, or just downright wrong. There seems to be consensus in fandom that these are Important Things to talk about, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what they mean. So, as a queer woman who has engaged in fandom for 20 years, I want to talk about the idea of queerness and what it means to be queer.  

So, in this essay, I’m going to address three major questions:

What does it mean for an individual to be queer?

What does it mean for a relationship to be queer?

What does it mean for a piece of media to be queer?

I’m going to argue that for an individual to be queer is an ontological and epistemological issue, for a relationship to be queer is just epistemology, and for a piece of media to be queer is an epistemology plus diegesis. I’ll explain what these words mean (and how I’m going to use them), and I’ll have some sources sprinkled throughout. It’s generally Bad Academic Practice to source Wikipedia, but for the sake of accessibility and ease of explanation, Wikipedia is a good source for this essay.

Ok, so let’s define some terms. I’m going to start with the most obvious, but also perhaps the hardest to pin down: queer.

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning "strange" or "peculiar", queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community. (x)

So there are a few major takeaways for the word queer. The first one is that queer is inclusive--it’s an umbrella term. The second one is that it describes people who are not heterosexual and/or cisgender. A definition by saying “we are not x” is actually not a great definition, so we’ll come back to this point later. The third one is that queer is political, and it always has been; crucially, queer does not equal LGBT.

Now on to the jargon: ontology and epistemology both come from the field of philosophy, and diegesis has its origins in Greek theater, but I hear it mostly used now to talk about film.

Ontology is the study of being. Ontology asks questions like what is a thing? what exists? What categories of things are there? So, for my purposes, when I talk about ontology, I’m talking about categorization and identity. What are the labels we give ourselves? What categories do we sort ourselves into? How do we identify ourselves?

Epistemology is the related study of knowing. Epistemology asks questions like how do we know something is true? how do we define truth? how do we make justifications? For my purposes, epistemology has a lot to do with how we define social truths and norms. What is true about human gender/sexuality/etc.? How does queerness affect one’s beliefs? I use worldview as a kind of short hand for epistemology in this essay, though epistemology is really only one part of a person’s worldview. But, for my purposes, worldview works just fine.

Diegesis refers to anything within a narrative text--characters, plot, setting, etc. are all diegetic (or intradiegetic). Things outside the text, like the score of a movie or the UI of a videogame, are extradiegetic.

Ok now that we have all the jargon down, let’s tackle the first question: What does it mean for an individual to be queer?

As I previewed above, I define queerness for an individual to be a matter of both ontology and epistemology. I want to come back to the definition of queer here, specifically the part that defines queerness as “not cisgender and heterosexual”. This is a bad category ontologically speaking, because the definition doesn’t point to all the things that make up this category, but rather the things that don’t. Queerness, in this definition, is a catch-all; I’m not sure that’s really an accurate way to think of queerness. At least in linguistics, the catch-all category is for the default, unmarked cases, and queerness is not that at all.

So I’m going to switch things up a little and change this part of the definition. Instead of defining queer by what it’s not, I’m going to define queer epistemologically. Queerness is not just not being heterosexual/cisgender, but a rejection of the heteronormativity (“the belief that heterosexuality, predicated on the gender binary, is the norm or default sexual orientation”). This rejection may derive from social ostracization and condemnation from same-gender attraction/behavior and/or gender non-conforming, but ultimately is not quite the same thing as LGBT.

Queerness and Queer Theory seek to deconstruct notions and norms of gender, sexuality, and all of the social baggage that comes along with them. Therefore, being asexual and/or aromantic is inherently queer as these identities are a rejection of social expectations for behavior. This deconstructionist impulse may even be at odds with people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender. For example, Natalie Wynn, in her video about Pronouns, discusses that her desire to be perceived as a woman is inherently counter to someone who seeks to eradicate or seriously challenge the gender binary (as with non-binary individuals).

None of this is to say that an individual person can’t identify as both L, G, B or T and also queer, but this is where we come back to ontology. Ontology has to do with how we identify and how we make categories. For example, I use both bisexual and queer to identify myself. I use bisexual because I experience sexual and romantic attraction to more than one gender, and I use queer because it includes this idea of challenging gender and sexual norms (and also it doesn’t necessitate explanation of all the details of my gender/sexuality).

Therefore, one person’s use of queer to describe themselves is both ontological, because they are defining and categorizing themself, and epistemological, because being queer is essentially a lens through which to know the world.

So, if an individual’s queerness is a mix of identity and worldview, what about a relationship?

A relationship can’t have an identity the same way that an individual human can, i.e. a relationship can’t pick a category for it to belong to because it’s not a sentient entity. Americans can categorize relationships by the genders of the people in that relationship--heterosexual for man+woman, homosexual for man+man or woman+woman. These categorizations, of course, exclude relationships that have more than two people, and people whose genders are not “man” or “woman”. But this still isn’t really the same thing as me, an individual person, choosing to use bisexual to label myself.

Therefore, a queer relationship isn’t really the same thing as a homosexual relationship, though they may overlap. Queerness, in a relationship, is entirely epistemological. How does the relationship operate?

Traditional heterosexual relationships (at least in 20th/21st century USA) privilege the man, and the woman is subservient. Men work outside the home and women raise children/do domestic work. Men and women in a traditional heterosexual relationship are supposed to have all of their emotional, physical, etc. needs met by their partner. Traditional heterosexual relationships are monogamous, both sexually and emotionally.

But a queer relationship questions accepted social norms. A queer relationship may not be monogamous, it may reject the traditional gender dynamic, and so on. What I’m ultimately saying is that a heterosexual relationship, that is a man and a woman in a relationship, can be queer. This is because queer relationship does not equal homosexual. I’ll give two examples.

I’ll start with the easier example: a heterosexual relationship only requires one man and one woman, but makes no stipulation that the man and woman have to be cisgender. There are plenty of transmen exclusively attracted to women and transwomen exclusively attracted to men. Just because the make up of their relationship is man+woman, doesn’t mean that their relationship isn’t queer. The queerness is baked in because they themself may be queer.

The second example seems to be more emblematic of a sticking point for some people. I am married to a heterosexual man, but we are in a queer relationship. Because I am queer, and it affects how I respond to social norms, I also reject heteronormativity in my romantic relationship. My husband and I have been together for almost 13 years and married for 3; for the longest time, I did not want to get married because the idea of marriage, specifically the traditional idea of marriage, disgusted me. To me, marriage is the realm of religion and the state, neither of which I wanted to be particularly involved in my relationship. The reasons we ended up getting married were practical (I now have health insurance!), but also because my husband is a big ol’ romantic and we compromised (we get married and I keep my name). This is just one example of how my notions of gender/sexual expectations have been a part of my relationship, but there are plenty of others. Also I am visibly queer and waiters often think we need two checks when we eat out together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(If you want to see someone else talk about this, I recommend looking into Erika Moen’s autobiographical work. This tweet thread is just one example of her discussing being queer and being married to a man.)

Therefore, queer relationships are not about identity, but rather how the epistemology of one or both or all people in a relationship affects the operation and function of that relationship. A queer relationship is one that rejects heteronormativity, not one that exclusively consists of people of the same gender. This makes it sound like if a cisgender heterosexual man and cisgender heterosexual woman are in a relationship, it could potentially be queer, which I think is the fear of anyone who pushes back on the possibility of a man and a woman being in a queer relationship together. However, if the two individuals in a relationship are both cisgender and heterosexual, neither of them has rejected heteronormativity in one way or another (even if they have non-traditional gender roles in the relationship). Therefore, if at least one person in a relationship is queer (whether they be asexual, gender non-conforming, homo/bisexual, etc.) the whole relationship is queer.

Finally, I get to stories: What makes a particular piece of media queer?

As discussed for individual identity and relationships, a piece of media is queer because it has a queer epistemology. There is a way of constructing truth in a narrative that rejects heteronormativity, but it is important to discuss whether this rejection happens in the text of the work (diegetic) or the rejection is in social context in which the work was created (extradiegetic).

One interesting example is the Imperial Radch books by Ann Leckie. In these books, the main political force in the story doesn’t distinguish gender in its pronouns. Therefore, everyone the main character encounters is “she” regardless of their biology or gender identity. Within the story (diegetically), this is not queer. This is the established norm of a very large and powerful people, and just a function of their language. Now, outside the story (extradiegetically), the use of “she” is queer af. This is a deliberate choice by the author to question our assumptions about what is “normal” and “default”.

Steven Universe does something similar by having a race of sentient space rocks who only use “she” as their pronouns. Extradiegetically, this again challenges ideas about how the gender binary is “supposed” to work, plus the space rocks demonstrate a wide range of expressions of femininity. Within the story (diegetically), we see metaphorical of rejection of heteronormativity, specifically through Garnet and her story. Therefore, Steven Universe is both epistemologically and diegetically queer.

Does this make Steven Universe more queer than the Imperial Radch books? Maybe it does.

For me, Steven Universe “feels” queer, while the Imperial Radch books don’t. I really love the Imperial Radch books and the way they make you actively think about how “she” is generally not considered the default pronoun. But this is all outside the text. I engage with the text as a person in a particular social context where women are lower on the social hierarchy than men, but the characters in the Imperial Radch books don’t share this social context. The construction of social order for the gems in Steven Universe, to contrast, is similar to my social context, so both within the text and outside the text, Steven Universe is queer. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a certain amount of subjectivity here, but for me, a queer show is one that is both diegetically and extradiegetically queer.

This brings me to queerbaiting, a word that seems to mean almost anything in fandom. I’ve discussed what queerbaiting is and how to define it here and here, but I wanted to come back to the definition from @rainbofiction:

“Queerbaiting is clinging to the heteronormative interpretation on the surface of things, and refusing to invalidate it, but still trying to present a queer reading in the background; metaphorically selling the hetero story from the front door, and the queer story out back.”

Queerbaiting is not necessarily ship tease, though there seems to be some conflation of the two. I’ve seen it used to discuss Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Voltron, Once Upon a Time, and other shows. I think queerbaiting as an idea can really only exist in an episodic format, since (save for streaming shows) you don’t get the story all at once. By being presented the story and characters bit by bit, you as a viewer don’t engage with the story as something full and complete, but instead the story as it’s being built. Because you don’t have the full story, your understanding and interpretation of the work can be affected by the text itself of course (diegetic material), but also all the extradiegetic and paratextual stuff that exists alongside the work.

Let’s think about books for a moment, specifically self-contained, standalone novels. Let’s pretend that Pride & Prejudice were not a complete story presented all at once, but rather released chapter by chapter with weeks or months passing between each chapter. If you started reading from the beginning of the work, you might make up your mind from the beginning that Darcy is the worst, and you and your friends talk about how Darcy is just awful and that Wickham fellow is soooo much better for Elizabeth. You might expect the work to continue to justify your position (coming back to epistemology), but it purposefully does not do that. Elizabeth and Darcy grow and change over the course of the novel, and end in a place of love and mutual respect.

But imagine Pride & Prejudice were released in the internet age, and you’ve spent a year (or two! Or five!) waiting for the end of the book to come, and then … this? After you’ve spent all this time engaging with people, creating fanworks, speculating about this idea of Elizabeth and Wickham, and in the end you are not rewarded by canon for your investment.

This is what queerbaiting feels like. But does that mean this is what queerbaiting is?

When I’ve discussed queerbaiting before, I’ve argued that queerbaiting is so difficult to identify because it requires two elements: 1) legitimate queer subtext, and 2) intent by the author(s) to mislead or swindle the audience. Queerbaiting is also tricky to talk about because if the work is incomplete (i.e. released episode by episode over time), you just cannot know if you’re being queerbaited.

I personally don’t want to conflate queerbaiting with shipping, because I do think they are two discrete issues, but this conflation seems to be the only way fandom talks about queerbaiting. To demonstrate, I’ll talk about The Magicians (the TV show).

To start with, The Magicians is a queer show. The show frequently challenges assumptions about heteronormativity--specifically the idea of soulmates/destiny in love, and that one person + another person = happiness and fulfillment. We even have an analog of queerness as a social taboo, with human/animal relationships in Fillory. Therefore, epistemologically, The Magicians is queer.

The Magicians also has multiple LGBT characters, at least three of which are main characters. No one on the show has told us the audience how they identify, but we have seen Margo, Eliot and Quentin express same gender attraction in one form or another. Diegetically, The Magicians is queer.

So, now that I’ve show that The Magicians is both epistemologically and diegetically queer, let’s talk about why the q-baiting word is used in discussions of this show.

This season had a landmark episode (4x05) that essentially sets up romantic feelings between two men (Quentin and Eliot) as a pillar of the narrative of this season. The boys didn’t get together (for lots of reasons) in that episode, but that episode made it clear that they both love each other, and that love is driving both of them the rest of the season. But in recent episodes, one of the boys, who has already been established to be bisexual, gets back together with his ex-girlfriend.

To summarize: The Magicians set up the expectation that Quentin and Eliot will be together in some capacity (though the show overall seems less concerned with ideas like “soulmates” and “endgame” but that’s another essay for another time), but at this point, it has not followed through. Like with my P&P example, I understand why this feels like queerbaiting, but is it?

I’m going to start with the ontological perspective: Quentin is bisexual regardless of the gender of his romantic and/or sexual partner. However, Quentin isn’t a real person, and as I’ve talked about already, ontology doesn’t really work for entities that aren’t living, breathing people. Quentin hasn’t told us the viewers that he’s bi, so all we have to go on is her behavior (something that should never ever ever be used to talk about a real life person’s sexual/gender identity)--his actions as a fictional character in a narrative.

So looking at his behavior, at this one time slice in an ongoing story, it can appear like the expectations for a romantic relationship between Quentin and Eliot will not be met. But this comes back to the problem of episodic storytelling. It is impossible at this point to say “well I guess Quentin and Eliot aren’t endgame, hence queerbaiting” because the story isn’t over. We have one more episode to go in this season and (at least) another season on the horizon. Who knows what will happen between now and then.

Additionally, as discussed before, The Magicians is epistemologically queer. The Magicians is not giving us a heteronormative story with queer subtext--the queerness is inherent to the text (and not just because there are LGBT characters). So taking shipping out of the equation for a moment, The Magicians is not queer by subtext or interpretation; The Magicians is queer because it overtly rejects heteronormativity.

Here’s some ways it does this:

Eliot (a mostly gay man) and Fen (a woman) come to care for each other despite having an arranged marriage. They have a romantic, sexual, and familial relationship.

Penny40 and Kady were in love, but Penny23 loves Julia. Relationships aren’t set in stone, there is not one person “meant” for another.

Whenever expectations of straightness and man-ness are mentioned in text (see Hyman and Penny’s supervisor in the Underworld branch)

This is a non-exhaustive list, but it demonstrates how heterosexuality and all the other social expectations that come with it are explicitly deconstructed by the show. Therefore, The Magicians cannot queerbait because it is diegetically and epistemologically queer.

Ok, so I’ve covered a lot of ground, but here are my major points:

Queer =/=  LGBT, though the two do overlap. Queerness is a rejection of heteronormativity; it is radical, deconstructionist and political.

An individual being queer is different from a relationship being queer or a show being queer.

An individual’s queerness is a matter of identity (ontology) and worldview (epistemology).

A relationship is queer through the way it operates, the way it rejects heteronormative assumptions about how relationships should operate (epistemology).

A piece of media is queer through worldview (epistemology) but how much of that is baked into the text (diegesis) is important too

Queerbaiting is often conflated with shipping (specifically shipping on non-canon m/m and f/f pairings), but they are two separate issues.

It is impossible to know if expectations about a m/m or f/f ship will be met while the story is still in progress.

A piece of media cannot queerbait if it is epistemologically queer.

The reason I sat down and wrote this was to work through my feelings about what it means to be queer, and why I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the word “queerbaiting”. Queerness is something that is constructed in many ways, and I haven’t even really discussed much of the political or community issues. Ultimately it’s up to each of us as individuals to critically engage with both fiction as it portrays queerness, and how we police each other and reinforce categories. I think this essay can provide some framework for that engagement.

This was not written to invalidate anyone’s feelings; if you personally feel let down by a piece of media, you are entitled to those feelings. However, fandom can very quickly become an echo chamber, and rather than reinforce feelings, good or bad, I offer this framework as an alternative. It can helps us answer questions like : How does media construct queerness? Is it epistemological? Is it diegetic? Does it replicate expectations of heterosexual relationships but with people of the same gender? Does it stereotype? And by answering these questions, we can get to the heart of queerbaiting, both as a feeling and as something that exists in the world.

------

This essay comes out of many many long talks about gender and sexuality and queerness with @messier51. Her perspective helped me get my thoughts in order!!!

[screechingfestivalavenue-blog]

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While you’re out mining dating apps for love this Valentine’s Day, these platforms are doing the same to your data. That’s because these apps and sites’ business models rely on the information you provide, to determine things like the matches they suggest and the ads they show you as you swipe.

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But in a sea of strangers’ profile pictures, it can be hard to tell how, exactly, services like Tinder and OkCupid choose the suggested matches for you that they do. After all, the algorithms that power these platforms are proprietary, and companies have no interest in dishing out intimate details about how they work, neither to us nor their competitors.

Still, the information these companies have volunteered (and what they’ve disclosed thanks to data privacy laws like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation) can give us a good idea of how they generally work. As to whether these algorithms are actually better than the real world for finding love? That’s still up for debate, though that hasn’t stopped 30 percent of US adults from trying one of these platforms at least once in their lives.

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First and foremost, whatever data you explicitly share with a dating app or site, the platform now has it. Depending on the platform you’re using, that can mean your gender, sexual orientation, location data, political affiliation, and religion. If you’re sharing photos or videos through a dating app, yes, the company has access to those. And they might be screening them with AI too; Bumble uses such tech to preemptively screen and block images that might be lewd.

But a dating platform can also have access to data about your activity on social media platforms if you connect them to your dating profile. As journalist Judith Duportail recounted in the Guardian, the dating app platform Tinder had maintained at least 800 pages worth of information on her that included info from her Facebook and Instagram accounts (including her “Likes” and the number of Facebook friends she had) and the text of conversations she had with every single one of her matches on the app. (You too can try requesting some of your Tinder dating app data, if you’re curious.)

So whatever service you’re using, be it an app-based platform like Hinge or a website-based service like Match.com, it likely has a bunch of your data. And these platforms work with third-party services that can also receive information about you.

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For instance, a website data tracker can pick up the URLs you visit while you’re on a dating site and use that information to gather analytics or target ads at you, as we explained earlier this week. Your data could also be shared with third-party companies that your dating app might work with for the purpose of studying their site usage and to help target ads.

Some of these dating-sharing processes are questionable. For instance, back in 2018, Grindr was forced to admit that two companies it had paid to study its app usage were ultimately able to access information about its users’ HIV status (that practice has since been stopped). The Android versions of OkCupid and Tinder, which are both owned by the Match Group — which, yes, also owns Match.com — have reportedly shared users’ data, including information about their political views, ethnicities, and location, with a customer engagement service called Braze, according to research from consumer protection agency the Norwegian Consumer Council earlier this year. (Responding to this report, Match said that it does not use “sensitive personal information whatsoever for advertising purposes,” and that it uses third parties to “assist with technical operations and providing our overall services.”)

Though they share user data with third parties, dating companies generally claim that they’re not selling users’ personal data. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have security vulnerabilities. Here’s just one concerning example: A bug in the chat feature on the dating app Jack’d made it possible to view users’ images sent as “private” on the public internet, as reported by Ars Technica last year. And on Tinder, a security flaw caused by issues on both the Facebook platform and Tinder’s login system allowed researchers to take over accounts on the dating app with just a user’s phone number (the problem, which was raised in 2018, was quickly fixed).

Another privacy consideration: There’s a chance your private communications on these apps might be handed over to the government or law enforcement. Like a lot of other tech platforms, these sites’ privacy policies generally state that they can give your data when facing a legal request like a court order.

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Your favorite dating site isn’t as private as you think How do the algorithms use my data to suggest matches? While we don’t know exactly how these different algorithms work, there are a few common themes: It’s likely that most dating apps out there use the information you give them to influence their matching algorithms. Also, who you’ve liked previously (and who has liked you) can shape your future suggested matches. And finally, while these services are often free, their add-on paid features can augment the algorithm’s default results.

Let’s take Tinder, one of the most widely used dating apps in the US. Its algorithms rely not only on information you share with the platform but also data about “your use of the service,” like your activity and location. In a blog post published last year, the company explained that “[each] time your profile is Liked or Noped” is also factored in when matching you with people. That’s similar to how other platforms, like OkCupid, describe their matching algorithms. But on Tinder, you can also buy extra “Super Likes,” which can make it more likely that you actually get a match.

You might be wondering whether there’s a secret score rating your prowess on Tinder. The company used to use a so-called “Elo” rating system, which changed your “score” as people with more right swipes increasingly swiped right on you, as Vox explained last year. While the company has said that’s no longer in use, the Match Group declined Recode’s other questions about its algorithms. (Also, neither Grindr nor Bumble responded to our request for comment by the time of publication.)

Hinge, which is also owned by the Match Group, works similarly: The platform considers who you like, skip, and match with as well as what you specify as your “preferences” and “dealbreakers” and “who you might exchange phone numbers with” to suggest people who could be compatible matches.

But, interestingly, the company also solicits feedback from users after their dates in order to improve the algorithm. And Hinge suggests a “Most Compatible” match (usually each day), with the help of a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning. Here’s how The Verge’s Ashley Carman explained the method behind that algorithm: “The company’s technology breaks people down based on who has liked them. It then tries to find patterns in those likes. If people like one person, then they might like another based on who other users also liked once they liked this specific person.”

It’s important to note that these platforms also consider preferences that you share with them directly, which can certainly influence your results. (Which factors you should be able to filter by — some platforms allow users to filter or exclude matches based on ethnicity, “body type,” and religious background — is a much-debated and complicated practice).

But even if you’re not explicitly sharing certain preferences with an app, these platforms can still amplify potentially problematic dating preferences.

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Last year, a team supported by Mozilla designed a game called MonsterMatch that was meant to demonstrate how biases expressed by your initial swipes can ultimately impact the field of available matches, not only for you but for everyone else. The game’s website describes how this phenomenon, called “collaborative filtering,” works:

Collaborative filtering in dating means that the earliest and most numerous users of the app have outsize influence on the profiles later users see. Some early user says she likes (by swiping right on) some other active dating app user. Then that same early user says she doesn’t like (by swiping left on) a Jewish user’s profile, for whatever reason. As soon as some new person also swipes right on that active dating app user, the algorithm assumes the new person “also” dislikes the Jewish user’s profile, by the definition of collaborative filtering. So the new person never sees the Jewish profile.

If you want to see that happen in action, you can play the game here.

Will these apps actually help me find love? A couple of respondents to our call-out (you, too, can join our Open Sourced Reporting Network) wanted to know why they weren’t having much luck on these apps. We’re not in a position to give individualized feedback, but it’s worth noting that the efficacy of dating apps isn’t a settled question, and they’ve been the subject of extensive debate.

One study last year found connecting online is now the most popular way to meet for US heterosexual couples, and Pew reports that 57 percent of people who used an online dating app found it to be at least a somewhat positive experience. But these apps can also expose people to online deception and catfishing, and Ohio State researchers suggest that people suffering from loneliness and social anxiety can end up having bad experiences using these platforms. Like so many tech innovations, dating apps have trade-offs, both good and bad.

Still, dating apps are certainly helpful tools for landing a first date, even if their long-term success isn’t clear. And hey, maybe you’ll get lucky.

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[canardroublard]

TMFU, Gaby’s fashion, and some feminist film analysis

Back when I slapped together a reblog post about the men’s fashion in The Man From UNCLE in between physio appointments, which somehow got like way more notes than I ever really expected or even wanted, I didn’t address the fashion of the lead female character, Gaby. It was outside the scope of the OP, and I didn’t feel like I had anything new or interesting to say about Gaby’s fashion, or lack thereof.

(My beta says those earrings are the ugliest thing ever. I disagree. It’s a wonder we’re still friends)

Anyways, we see only one brief scene of Gaby in her own street clothes, and a slightly longer sequence of her in her work clothes. The rest of the film, she is wearing clothes chosen for her by Illya. Saying “we just don’t have enough info” is a perfectly reasonable approach to this. So this was the other reason I had no intention of making this post.

But then people started getting interested. Someone reblogged commenting about Gaby’s fashion, and I discovered that I have very strong opinions about something I’d previously claimed was unknowable, and it made me wonder what was going on in my brain.

Then I talked to some other TMFU friends who all seemed interested in what I assumed was common knowledge/nothing unique. So, they may have been feigning interest out of politeness, but it activated the art history side of my brain, and here we are now!

The boring stuff but please read this

I am not attempting to tell anyone how to interpret this film. I am not even trying to change people’s minds or persuade them to my thinking. All I am doing is sharing my thought process. I wasn’t even going to do this for Gaby until people asked. To this end, please don’t attempt to argue with me about this. I don’t want to argue. I won’t respond to it. If you disagree, then please, just move along.

And I’m going to remind people that I love TMFU. I love this movie so much it hurts. Why am I putting this reminder here? Because I am about to apply some critical analysis to it, and in places this will be cynical, and it will not always look kindly on the film. If you just want to exist in a happy “I love TMFU!” bubble and not hear anything less than 100% positive about the film (which is a totally valid choice, I don’t fault anyone for that), then don’t read. But don’t yell at me for being mean or criticizing the film, because I warned you.

Tldr; or, if I were still being graded for this stuff here’s my thesis statement

When analysing Gaby’s fashion, there exist considerations which don’t apply to the male characters. Namely, she is a woman and the male gaze is a thing. So I am very, very wary about taking at  face value any expressions of traditional femininity in the choices made  for her outfits, hair, makeup, etc. Therefore, when considering her character, I find it much more useful and informative to give more weight to the aspects of her appearance which do not connote traditional femininity, rather than those that do.

For readers who have studied enough  media analysis to follow my thought based on that alone, there’s the thesis statement, y’all can go home (or at least skip to the end where I come to a conclusion). If you’re lost, then read on.

(mobile readers, the cut here might not work, and if so I apologize for what is going to be a very long post. Tumblr’s “keep reading” functionality is inconsistent at best, but I tried)

Context is for kings essential for analysing media in a meaningful way

(Or, some brief background. Stick with me here, we’ll get to the good stuff soon)

So, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempting to analyze any artwork (in this case a film) while disregarding the culture it was created in and the intentions of the creator is...not going to get you very far. Asking “what is art” is a question that quite frankly exhausts me at this point (looking at you, Duchamp) but the closest I’ve ever come to an answer is that the only thing that separates art from everything else is intent. And intention only exists within cultural context. So yes, intent and context don’t just matter peripherally, they are one of the biggest considerations one needs to make when analyzing works of art. The creator in this case being Guy Ritchie et al, the culture being British/American Popular Cinema in The Year of Somebody’s Lord Two-Thousand-And-Fifteen. 

Everyone views and creates (if applicable) art through their own distorted, murky, imperfect lens of personal experience. And one of the most persistent Things in western art is that cishet men create art based on their experience of Being A Dude. This is crucial, because this lens of cishet male perspective literally underpins almost all of western culture including popular culture. And thanks to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, we have a name for this.

The male gaze and you

I’m going to quote Wikipedia here, because honestly this intro sentence sums things up rather neatly (with one exception which I will address momentarily).

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

What does that all mean? That the Viewer and the Artist are both cishet men by default, and any women are Subjects of art. Women are viewed, never viewers. Men take action, women are subjected to actions. Furthermore, women are supposed to be pleasurable to view. By men. Since the Viewer is male by default.

But I would disagree that the pleasure is inherently based on women being sexual objects. That’s honestly a really damn limited read on the whole theory, and it’s one that Wikipedia itself contradicts later in the article. More broadly, cis men also derive other forms of pleasure from the presentation and viewing of female bodies, including aesthetic pleasure (the enjoyment of looking at beautiful things).

The theory of the male gaze is not without limits. As originally theorized, afaik it’s not particularly intersectional. It doesn’t really address queer perspectives or perspectives of POC. However, these issues are something I just can’t address here, unfortunately. And when looking at popular media, I still find the concept of the male gaze, imperfect as it may be, is a helpful means of analysis, so it’s worth having in your toolbox.

Circling back, the easiest way to sum up the male gaze, if you’re still not super clear on what it is, is with a demonstration.

Ever seen a shot like this in a movie?

And did you immediately roll your eyes? Feel gross? Congrats, you have just perceived and reacted to the male gaze.

Now we actually get back to TMFU

But the male gaze also shows up in many more subtle, insidious ways than fanservice-y boob shots. For this post, let’s focus on the following considerations, which might help everyone follow my thought process more clearly.

Gaby is a woman

She functions as the love interest of Illya in the script (I am not talking from a shipping perspective. What you ship does not matter for this discussion. I am talking about the narrative function of Gaby in the script as written. Put on your “cishet man” goggles for a moment)

Illya is a man who is attracted to women, specifically Gaby (again, I don’t care if your shipping conflicts with this. I am analyzing the film based on a literal reading of it as if I were a cishet man. Why? Because that’s who made the film. That’s who it’s “for”. I am all for queer readings of film--hell, I ship OT3, I myself have chosen a queer reading for how I interact with it, but I’m not critiquing people’s readings, I’m critiquing the film itself and to do that I have to critique its intentions and cultural context.)

Cishet men are traditionally only allowed to be attracted to women who are conventionally attractive. If they were to be attracted to anyone else it would destroy their fragile senses of self and their heads would explode or something. At least I assume that’s what must happen, based on how terrified they are of it.

Therefore, Gaby must be conventionally attractive, because it is literally required of her or otherwise the whole underpinning of western straight malehood crumbles and then where would we get such a pure, vast source of unadulterated toxic masculinity?

(Yes, this is a very cynical read on things. I’ve studied, like, three centuries worth of this bullshit. I’m tired. Let me be cynical.)

Or, to force myself to be less cynical, Gaby has to be pretty because...nope, this is still going to turn out just as cynical.

But what I will say in favour of this movie is that it gives Gaby and Victoria both a lot of agency and general awesomeness, which is quite unusual in this sort of big-budget action film, and it’s one of the big reasons I love it. I’m not saying that the entire film is sexist. On the contrary, there’s a ton of stuff to celebrate about how it portrays its female characters. But these aspects don’t change the cultural context, and we still have to consider the impacts of the male gaze.

Anyways, point being is that as filtered through the male gaze, Gaby is never given the option to, say, wear no makeup (or the appearance of such, as the guys are afforded, this being cinema where “no makeup” still means makeup) because that would look “ugly”.  Instead she needs to have a “baseline of pretty” which is way higher than reality because she is not a real human being with her own agency, she is a character created by a cis male writer/director team in a film directed by a cis man in a genre that caters to cishet men.

Gaby doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She exists battling centuries and centuries worth of sexist convention.

Now then, remembering all of that, let’s actually look at her. There are woefully few good pictures so I’m going to have to piece things together a little. Starting with the coveralls.

This is a great look, I love it. And I’m going to give Ritchie a lot of credit here because it would’ve been easy to go for a “Michelle Rodriguez in F&F sexy mechanic lady” look. In case I need to provide a visual:

(Repeat above gif about rolling my eyes)

Now, to be clear, I am not making any judgement about the way any real-life women dress. I’m sure there’s plenty of female mechanics who have their hair down and wear tank tops while working. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t care if real life mechanics choose to do their jobs in a string bikini. Or in cosplay of the bee from Bee Movie. I don’t care (and quite frankly it’s none of my business) because they are real people who can make their own decisions. But what I am talking about here is a fictional character who does not have her own agency. I am critiquing how male creators choose to dress their female characters.

So I personally choose to read much more into the unpretty  aspects of Gaby’s outfit, because these are not the “obvious” or “easy”   things. Obvious and easy are “of course she wears makeup” and “of course her hair looks good” and  “of course she doesn’t look like a swamp witch  who bathes in mud and spends her days cursing passing men”. Those things don’t challenge or disrupt the assumption that women must look attractive for male consumption.

Gaby’s introduction to us is with her in a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls, not wearing any obvious makeup (again, this is cinema, so she is wearing makeup. For cinema the goal posts around “wearing makeup” always need to be moved from where they’d be irl). There’s very little here that screams ‘pretty’. And that is fascinating to me.

I don’t know how deeply Ritchie thought this through when giving final approval to the costume, hair and makeup. But unpretty is not the default here. It’s a choice

And look at this. This is the stance and dress sense (and socks!) of a woman who does not give a damn about looking good for the male gaze, whether the in-movie gaze of Napoleon, or the implied gaze of the viewer and creator. It’s not ‘pretty’. And this is the only time in the film we see Gaby in her own everyday clothes, as she only escapes East Berlin with the literal clothes on her back.

So how do I think Gaby dresses? I think that for the most part she dresses....like this. Practical. Comfortable. With a few simple touches of things she likes/finds pretty, perhaps, but not with a specific interest in being pretty. She dresses for herself, not for others. And if that isn’t something to aspire to, I don’t know what is.

[qqueenofhades]

Is there more than one meaning for queer? If so, how do you define it! Asking to understand. Thanks. 🙂

Ahaha. Oh man. This is not a giant can of worms or anything. Nosirreebob.

The word “queer” has a long history as a term of self-definition for people who identify as something else than cisgender heterosexual/heteroromantic. In layman’s terms, anyone who experiences sexual and romantic attraction only to the opposite sex and identifies as the gender they were born as is not likely to call themselves queer. Anyone outside of this category (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, asexual, pansexual, aromantic, demisexual, etc etc there are many labels) has the option to, but does not have to and sometimes does not want to, identify themselves as queer. Someone may prefer one term, or none of these, or just “not straight.” But “queer” was the word first used when a non-heterosexual identity was being socially constructed, and it’s the word used in academic studies (i.e. “queer theory.”) It has the advantage of encompassing multiple non-heterosexual identities in one umbrella term, so you don’t have to spell out yourself with many buzzwords unless you want to. Someone who is queer may identify as one of the main LGBT categories, and prefer that definite label, or they might just use the word to say “I do not identify as cis(gender)het(erosexual).” It depends.

There is a subset of people, particularly younger LGBT people who don’t really know their history, who treat the word “queer” as a slur. Obviously it has been used in a derogatory fashion – but then, literally every word for gay people has been used as a slur, including most obviously “gay” itself, and if you went trying to kick out all those words in the name of the purity police, you’d have no vocabulary left, because language is a human construct and changes its meaning over time and is interpreted by its users and context and so on and so on. Obviously, marginalised groups can and do reclaim derogatory terms used against them and make it into a word that can only be used within the community (the most extreme example is African-Americans and the N-word), but “queer” was ours all along. We picked it and we used it and then it got treated as a dirty word. It’s not something that was imposed on us beyond our control by hostile outsiders, but a word that we chose ourselves to defiantly mark ourselves out from heteronormativity and “default straightness.”

Personally, I use the word “queer” because like many Non Straight people, I don’t experience my identity as fixed or static or as one thing, and it’s once again the easiest catch-all term. On a basic level, I identify as bisexual, i.e. having sexual/romantic attraction to both men and women, but I’m also demisexual or ace-spec, because I am not a big fan of physical contact and am such an introvert that I can’t sit too close to other people in say, coffee shops because I can’t work with them up in my space. Other times I feel like I identify as almost totally lesbian, because I can go for long periods of time only experiencing attraction to women and none whatsoever to men (then I see any picture of Goran whatsoever and am like oh yeah, I’d still let him bang me like a screen door in a hurricane. It is his talent). I’m also cisgender, i.e. I was assigned female at birth and as an adult, still identify as a woman/with femininity/femaleness, but I was treated emotionally like a boy by my parents for many years growing up (it’s a long story, but there were three girls in my family and I got treated like the “son,” even though I absolutely was not one in any way). So that affected my personal relationship with gender and my expression of it. I’m still afraid to cut off my hair, which I grew long as a kid (possibly to remind my parents I was a girl?) even though I want to possibly try a short style, because it causes me anxiety about whether I’ll still be “feminine.” Which is dumb, but there you go.

….anyway. That was probably more than you want to know. But the point is, “queer” is and always has been a) multivalent, b) representative of one or many non-heterosexual identities and c) self-chosen by the community, even despite its use as a slur, because every marginalised group has had its words and descriptions used that way. I find it the easiest and most concise way to describe my personal orientation, which encompasses several different aspects of LGBT-ness, and that is why I use it.

[mykidsgay]

Defining: Heteronormativity By Sara Schmidt-Kost

Welcome to another installment of our “Defining” series, where we unpack various terms and identities. Do you have a word that needs defining? Let us know!

Define It:

Heteronormativity is the normalization of heterosexuality, or sexual attraction between a man and a woman. Heteronormativity says that being heterosexual—or straight—is normal, and it should be assumed that everyone everywhere is straight unless openly stated otherwise.

Explain It:

Heteronormativity is everywhere, from literature to music, from movies to television, from art to history, to societal institutions, to everyday life. Heteronormativity dictates that heterosexual is the default sexuality. The straight default setting on our society can really start to mess with our heads.

As queer youth, we see heterosexuality on display everywhere we go. We see it in advertisements, we see it in music videos, we see it on the big screen. In order to see our own queer identity in print, art, and media, we have to actively seek it out. While representations of our LGBTQIA identities in print, art, and media are getting better and more common, they have not always been easy to find. In fact, throughout history, we have had to use coded language and coded imagery to avoid censorship and find our identities in a sea of heterosexuality.

Because being straight is seen as the norm, queer identities are often disregarded and heterosexuality is forced on children from a very young age (Hello, “Chick Magnet” and “Sorry Boys” onesies!). Age-appropriate playground behavior by young children is given heterosexual undertones by adults inappropriately sexualizing innocent actions. “Oh, little Johnny is just flirting with little Suzy.” “Is that your girlfriend, little Billy?” Many queer adults had some idea of their queer identity from a young age, but because of heteronormativity we were not able to explore or fully develop our own identities until we are much older.

Not only does heteronormativity normalize being straight, it also privileges those that identify as straight over LGBTQIA folks. Our societal institutions—marriage, education, hospitals, the legal system, and many more—give more power and rights to those who are straight. Even small things, like the way forms are written (husband/wife, mom/dad) normalize straight couples. Having to scratch out “husband” on a form and write “wife #2” is a small but painful dig at our identity and our relationships. It’s just another way to say that we’re not normal, we’re not the default, we are other.

Debunk It:

�� Don’t assume identities

Heteronormativity is very pervasive, and it can be hard to not assume people's identities. But we should still push against the norm and do our best to avoid assumptions. When meeting a person for the first time, we can use inclusive language to allow a person to express their own identity in their own way. For example, using “significant other” or “partner” instead of “boy/girlfriend” or “husband/wife” language is more inclusive, gender-neutral, and allows the other person to claim their own identity.

• Make room for queer media

Because heterosexuality is the norm, we have to actively seek out queer media. By advocating for a wide variety of identities represented in print, art, and media, we can use our voices and our choices to push for more queer representation in mainstream media. Watching TV shows like One Day at a Time or movies like Love, Simon as a family is a small and easy way to introduce queer identities to the whole family.

• Learn queer history

The LGBTQIA community has always been here. We may not have had a seat at the table before, and our identities were pushed to the margins, ignored, or covered up all together, but we have always existed. We have a rich and important history that should be studied and included in the historical narrative of the world. Check out our Pride Month series, Know Your Queer History, for a 3-part history lesson on influential LGBTQ activists, artists, and politicians throughout history!

Be sure to check out the rest of The Defining Series right here!

***

Click through to read about our contributors!

[thepropertylovers]

Feature Friday with Jeremy Scott

Happy Friday! In this week’s FF, we get to know Jeremy on a deeply personal and vulnerable level. He opens up about his fear of coming out because he was afraid of being judged - by the gay community. He discusses the importance of mental health, living your truth, and what made him finally decide to come out. We came away from this with our eyes opened wider than before and a fresh, new perspective. We believe you will have a lot of takeaways from Jeremy’s intelligent, inspiring words. Take a look below to see what we mean…

Where are you from? I’m from Baltimore County, Maryland.

Where do you live? I’m currently attending medical school in Knoxville, TN but will be moving back home to study for my Step 1 board exam. Then I will be traveling for my clinical rotations. I’m going to be a bit of a nomad for a little while.

Instagram handle: @jpscott09

Age: 31

On cute little mountain towns: Bariloche, Argentina is my favorite place of all time that I’ve travelled! It’s this beautiful mountain town, and whether you’re into skiing, hiking or just walking around shopping and eating, there are gorgeous mountains all around, with crystal clear water and green forests. In town there’s this incredible candy shop, named Mamushka, that is plucked right out of a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

“But I am the sum of ALL of my parts, not the convenient choosing of a few. I can’t control what people see or choose to focus on when they look at me, discuss my accomplishments, etc. I can only live and shine in my truth; that will have to be enough. “

On an uneventful, but meaningful coming out: I’ve always known I was gay and that my family and friends knew as well. I had a gay uncle and have cousins that are gay and lesbian. After hearing an interview by a mom of one of the victims of the Orlando Nightclub shooting, I finally had a sit-down conversation with my mom. It was easy and uneventful and took place sitting in my Mom’s bathroom while she irrigated my clogged ear. I also sandwiched our conversation between reveals of my latest tattoos. She was more shocked about my tattoos than my coming out - my being gay was an unspoken fact, but the tattoos were brand new! And that’s how I said it, as if it were a statement, to my mom and any other family member or friend. I’m gay. It wasn’t an invitation for questioning or discussion, it was a statement of MY truth, that, understandably might take some time to comprehend and digest, but won’t change. I didn’t want anyone close to me to think I was ashamed of being gay just because I hadn’t said the words aloud. Silence allows for the creation of a false narrative, and I didn’t want there to be one surrounding something that makes me human, unique and worthy of love and belonging. 

On being comfortable within the gay community: It was fear of being accepted into the gay community that kept me from coming out sooner. I was overweight in my early 20s, and looking at images of the guys that frequented P Town or Fire Island, Barry’s Bootcamp or Soul Cycle made me hesitant to even believe that I’d be accepted - I was the ‘fat theater science nerd’ juxtaposed to the cool good-looking guys. It is worth mentioning that even though the gay community is a marginalized one, there exists a judging or shaming of its members. For example, placing character attributes or implicit biases and monikers such as “gold star, dairy queen, top, or bottom.” Individuals hide behind the term “preference,” to express their predilections when really, it’s a way to justify homogenizing social groupings or dating prospects. We can say it’s due to wanting to be around similar people, with a related background or potential shared experiences, but when did doing that help us grow or better ourselves? I’ve just now, over the past two/three years, gotten comfortable within the gay community, having accepted my flaws while championing my uniqueness; I’ve moved from a timid outsider to the curious and open wanderer.

On the importance on having an ally, and learning from life’s obstacles: Prior to having my “official” sit down with my family and close friends, I was outed by a classmate. We got into an argument one night, and, even though we agreed to keep everything quiet, he got into a taxi with some of our mutual friends and told them that we had been together and gave intimate details about us “hooking up.” I learned about what he had done because a friend just happened to be in the taxi that night. She will forever be someone I hold close to my heart, for many reasons, but because in that moment, she showed me the definition of true friendship- an ally against hurtful and potentially damaging hate speech and a source of support and understanding. I still think she was more bothered by the event than me. I, however, wasn’t even mad and still am not. That was a noteworthy moment that I draw strength from because at that time, I realized I was fully accepting of myself as gay and didn’t care who knew. As for moving forward from this situation and continuing on with my life, I viewed this as any other hurdle or obstacle and haven’t let it define me. I learned the lesson I was meant to learn- I dealt with forgiveness and am proud of the person I am because of it.

On the importance of “marble jar friends”: I am incredibly fortunate for the people I have in my life that I call friends and family. We are born into a family but as we grow and mature as adults, we have the ability to choose the individuals that make up our inner circle. My “marble jar friends,” as Brené Brown calls them, are as diverse in thought as they are in their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. These are the people that want for me what they want in themselves; to be seen, heard, and know I matter.

On living his truth, despite what others think: My family and friends have been nothing but supportive, and most conversations center around if I’m dating (yes, I’m single) and when I intend on getting married. The little backlash I have received has been mostly from members of the Black community. A few black professionals have messaged and said that, “I’ve disqualified any future accomplishments I will achieve as a part of the medical community because the only thing people will see me as is a gay black man.” I vehemently disagree with their statements, but understand that in the Black community there’s still a stigma about being gay. Some individuals would rather stay on “the down low,” as if openly being gay hurts the black male professional diaspora. But I am the sum of ALL of my parts, not the convenient choosing of a few. I can’t control what people see or choose to focus on when they look at me, discuss my accomplishments, etc. I can only live and shine in my truth; that will have to be enough.  

“Silence allows for the creation of a false narrative, and I didn’t want there to be one surrounding something that makes me human, unique and worthy of love and belonging.“

On the role of the medical community when it comes to LGBTQ healthcare: The medical community has a responsibility to educate, care for, and provide adequate healthcare to the LGBTQ community, which includes promoting PrEP. I think it starts with the family practitioner, the physician that sees a patient from childhood into adulthood, to not view heterosexuality as the default. Asking a patient, “Are you sexually active? With men, women, or both?” gives permission for an answer not constrained by judgment or preconceived notions but of openness and vulnerability. As a future healthcare provider, I have a duty to stay educated and advocate for my patients. I know that my experience is unique and has left me poised to reach a population of patients that may not feel like their needs are met or their voice heard by healthcare professionals. I will take my role seriously and do my best to make sure that every individual has access to healthcare that best addresses their needs and concerns.

On destigmatizing mental health: The best thing I ever did was decide to go to therapy. I’ve consistently seen Shannon, my therapist, over the past two years. There’s still a great deal of stigma surrounding mental health, as if you should be ashamed to take an introspective look at yourself, your relationships, and those around you. If anyone has looked at #foreignfriday on a Radiologist’s Instagram, trust me when I say there’s nothing you have to be embarrassed about sitting and talking to a therapist. Sometimes we need to develop strategies on how to handle our emotions or triage a situation with respect to what needs and deserves our attention first. And sometimes we just need to vent our frustrations in a safe objective space. Whatever the reason, stability and strength starts from within and you’ll be eternally grateful for taking the necessary steps to ensuring both when you prioritize your mental health.

On living in the south: Living down south has taught me the importance of communication and understanding. We can’t ask of others things we can’t or don’t ask of ourselves, and we need to be open to having tough conversations with people of differing views and opinions. Where I might not feel comfortable walking down the street holding my husband’s hand down here, I have really embraced the old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” Even after living on a Caribbean island where it is STILL illegal to be homosexual, I’ve never been this aware of my blackness and being gay. But I’ve challenged myself to look past the differences that divide us and seek the aspects of our humanity that bring us closer together. I’ve fallen in love with a guy from Knoxville and had my heart broken as well. I’ve been able to foster and find community through service and the running community. I’ve grown and am a better person for having lived down here.

On his biggest inspirations: I’m a huge Brené Brown fan-she’s my spirit guide. Her work over the years has guided me through so many unexpected turns and over impossible hurdles. Her work, along with my friends and family, whose voices have been louder than my own in times of doubt, have kept me going. I don’t know where I’d be without them, and there aren’t enough words to explain what their love means to me.

[premakalidasi]

Listen, I’m up to here with “spiritual” men and frigid women turning their noses up at physical sex (including its supreme form, masturbation) as spiritual practice, simply because they’ve only ever associated sexuality with being an abuser or being abused, and because they’ve never experienced the Divine through the fully embodied, non-sublimated erotic, and most of all, have never experienced full, blissful, union-with-the-Divine or even samadhi during orgasm. 

The female orgasm is vastly different from the male one, for a start. She is not exhausted by it; far from it. She is rejuvenated by it; her body springs into life instead of experiencing a “little death.” If anything, the female orgasm is a little Big Bang (the double entendre is, here, believe it or not, unintentional. Were I to say “spontaneous explosive expansion of space-time,” few would get what I’m getting at). But it is that: where, for the male, it’s unfortunately an end, it is to the woman, a beginning. And yet we’ve had to hear from heterosexual male “adepts” over and over that sexual energy should be retained, that it shouldn’t be wasted, that it shouldn’t be spilled, yadda yadda.

Have you any idea how ridiculous that sounds to someone whose body is built to be the container and developer of sexual energy? Or, for that matter, to any receptive partner, as at least some receptive men and post-op transwomen understand something of how absolutely different it is to experience an internal orgasm where the energy doesn’t leave the body, but where, instead, the expansion and explosion of energy is inwards?

Look. It’s like this. Imagine a pitcher full of water and an empty glass. And when the pitcher is picked up and water is poured from it into the glass, the pitcher feels a relief at his load being lessened there at first, but then he realises he’s getting emptier and weaker and bemoans “Oh, woe is me! I felt a relief of pressure and an unloading of weight at first, but now I feel exhausted, emptied!” And then, in a tremendous feat of ego, being utterly unable to understand that not everyone is a pitcher, presuming that everyone is like himself, he thinks the glass is feeling the same thing. “Glass, I’m so sorry I’ve dragged you into this! You must be feeling so miserable right now!” while the glass is filled, overjoyous, bubbling, swirling, going “I feel so full and rejuvenated! I’m filled with life! Mmm, can I have some more?”

And the pitcher doesn’t understand this at all, is suspicious, calls her an evil witch and topples off the table. And his broken, bitter pieces preach the horrors of this thing to everyone, write it into holy scriptures, into spiritual practices, imposing it onto everyone regardless of how different their build is.

The bliss the female is capable of experiencing is entirely different. It’s due to what her muscles, her complex hormonal, neurological and all kinds of biological workings do at the stimulation, when they prepare her body to--potentially--nurture an entire new life. The plant casts off its seed and it’s done, and it withers away; the earth’s job has only just begun. It rolls up its sleeves; it’s rippling all over with a burst of energy, tingling and busy and alive; never fuller. And that’s not due to her sucking out his energy either, any more than a massive field full of rich earth can nourish itself from just one little seed--the fecundity, the earth in all its complex organisms, is already existent within her, the energies becoming released and activated at stimulation of the vulva and the uterus. 

In fact, it’s even better experienced alone with a suitable toy, without a man having to enter into it all, not due to a technical fault on the part of the man but because that’s the way the female orgasm works. The contractions of the uterus and the pelvic floor muscles build up slowly and, ideally, lead to orgasm--but in practice, they are far too often interrupted by the thrusts of the penetrator because these thrusts are out of synch with the woman’s ripples. When the vaginal walls want to contract (i.e. squeeze), the squeeze is interrupted by something moving inside the vagina (not letting it squeeze down fully), and the cascade towards orgasm is interrupted. And that’s why so many women have trouble having orgasm during vaginal sex: because to time them right, the guy (or whoever delivers the thrusts, regardless of sex or gender) would have to be telepathic. (And incidentally, this is also why it’s easier for a number of women to come from anal sex, because the thrusts aren’t interrupting what the vagina and uterus are doing. They can contract as much as they like, while intense nervous stimulation is still applied; the best of both worlds.) Only when she’s in control of the thrusts, can she pace them to her own ripples so that her vaginal walls aren’t pushed apart just when they want to contract or left without anything to thrust into them when they yearn for a thrust. (And the dildo won’t call you a stupid whore or an evil witch, or tell you to not moan in such an embarrassing way, or otherwise hurt you when he’s inside your body and you’re enduring discomfort and potential pain for his sake, either.) 

But when the vaginal orgasm does arrive, it’s a full-body one, a blissful one, something that ripples through every muscle. If combined with yogic awareness, the chakras burst open; the experience is very much that of flower after flower, a series of petals bursting into bloom, opening, heaving inside, all glittering with sunlight. Or cascades of bright water, rainbow-coloured light--it’s exactly that which is hinted at in some scriptures, but buried under all kinds of misconceptions. There has absolutely been a woman involved there at one point when those concepts were formulated, describing that surge of energy upwards and exploding out at the top of the head. And the rain of nectar, being saturated with nectar? Yep. That’s what it is. 

Therefore, if your only experience of orgasm is post-ejaculatory fatigue, of just bringing the seeds to the field and not knowing what it feels like for the earth--if you never feel the expansion, the ecstasy, the ripples of creation itself radiating through your body in waves, why, pray, do you presume your shallow, pitiful experience is the same for everyone else? And why should you think that sexuality was harmful--it couldn’t be because you were born into the privilege to abuse it? How do you presume to hurt someone when you’re equipped a womb, cause someone an unwanted pregnancy with it, rape someone with a clitoris? Even the woman who’s used her charms to manipulate men still subjects herself to physical pain every time she opens her legs; it’s a shallow victory if it subjects you to the risk of having your body ripped open by a baby and dying as a result. If one woman out of a billion has ever abused sex to the point of molesting someone, it’s been noticed exactly because it’s been an anomaly: she makes headlines in newspapers, but sexual abuse by men is so commonplace it doesn’t even make the news--it’s just accepted as standard. Can you please consider again what it takes for a woman to even dare speak of sex, when she’s faced with that? 

Have you thought of what it would be like to have sex so that you were the one being penetrated, and that the default would be that you never had an orgasm? Because that’s the reality of most women on this planet. Stop and think about that for a while. How would that change your entire view of things? Of how, perhaps, it’s more than just the atrocious tyranny the world exerts over women’s bodies in the name of chastity that makes them reluctant to even discuss sex? Have you really thought of how orgasm is a privilege, something that happens to a male body so automatically it occurs even in sleep, because it’s a biological necessity (but not so for the woman) to ensure the continuation of the species? And how much work it requires for a woman to even conquer the shame over her body to touch it, to study it, let alone enough to learn how it can, potentially, orgasm? And how, if she’s only allowed to have sex with her husband and in ways where she cannot control the thrusts, and she’s shamed out of masturbating, (as most women on this planet genuinely are), it’s likely she never will? Have you really thought of that? Sex, always, with someone grunting on top of you, inside of you, maybe with a little pleasure but without orgasm, unless you’re extremely lucky?

Have you thought of what it’d be like to be born into the half of humanity that’s penalised for expressing sexuality in any way whatsoever? What’s a frivolous little act of amusement for you that you regret as a bit of wasted energy (and to a woman, equal to full samadhi at best), is, for a woman, an extremely radical act of self-expression and wholeness and even daring to fucking exist, performed under the threat of extreme violence and death. It’s not a fucking joke.

Even those “neo-Tantra” books you scoff at, hell, any books about sexuality written by women and involving the use of female genitals for the female’s own pleasure and enlightenment, are radical as fuck. They’re taboo-breaking, consciousness-transcending, seriously fucking out there, in and of themselves. They are the most antinomian, most mind-fucking, most explosive things of all, but egotistical men can’t see that because the stuff these books talk about--getting in touch with your own genitalia--are something men take for granted. It’s accepted that hey, guys think with their dicks. Most of the English-speaking world, on the other hand, doesn’t even know what the word “vagina” means, symbolic of how out of touch women and everyone else is about female bodies. Ask a woman to touch herself and she’ll blanch; ask her to taste herself and she’ll throw up. 

And you know what? I’d read even the loopiest, fluffiest, New Agest crystal-crusted version of those over one written by an egotistical male “sage” constantly going on about his own superiority without having ever paused to think of the full human experience, not just his half. He doesn’t even fucking acknowledge I exist, nor does he understand shit about my body’s experience, using it as a tool at best, whereas the hippie New Ager, no matter how cringeworthily misguided, at least respects the female body and allows me to fucking have my birthright of the pleasure it’s built to experience. And these  “updates”, these new practices and variations by people uninitiated by gurus that so many of you sneer at--has it ever occurred to you that they’ve never found the one female guru who understood women, supported women, let alone female sexuality at all? So that they have had to come up with new practices, new religions from scratch? In this, they are not less valuable: rather, more valuable because they finally depart from withered, inhuman old books and fucking allow half of the human race to even exist, and mind-bogglingly, even offer women the (gasp!) chance to expand into all we can be. It’s about time we resurrect and reinvent and rebuild spiritual practices that regard women as more than slaves, penis receptacles, son-producers, housekeepers. 

No, I’d rather listen to the full glass. She’s been shattered over and over, and has had to glue herself together ten times over before she got there, in a world where most women are not ever given glue, and where women themselves restrict the access to glue because it’s dirty and bad and slutty and impure.

It’s a whole different fucking game, a whole different  experience, a whole different world.

Don’t belittle it. Don’t remain in the pitiful accepted ideas of it, whether it’s simple classic patriarchal masculinity or self-sacrificing female chastity where even looking at your body in a mirror is a sin. Accept that you know fuck-all. Accept that you have a lot to learn still. And that you can learn from women, you can learn from gay and bisexual men, you can learn from taking something up your ass. You can learn from gay men’s fear of AIDS a little something of the pain and the risks (not just STDs but unwanted pregnacies, potentially lethal) women have to fear every time they accept a man’s advances. You can learn from what a post-op transwoman has to say. You can learn from what lesbian and bisexual women have to say about how they’ve felt about making love to a woman, or being made love to by both men and women. You can learn by empathising, visualising yourself as the other, via exercises where you try to see something in a way your opposite would. This includes those--especially those--who you think are doing it wrong, and trying to understand what they get out of it; just as in everything in life, even your “enemies” help you achieve a more integral and holistic view that includes as many experiences, ways of being as possible. 

As for this “clinging” business, this “human relationships are transient” thing. Whoever the fuck said you have to have sex with another person at all? Due to the aforementioned biological reasons, for women in particular, masturbation is the key. Making love to The Divine is the key, and hey presto, all your daddy (or mommy, or androgyne trickster deity) issues are solved. Someone, somewhere on the way, forgot to include wanking as sexuality (usually the stuck-up gits who allowed only for procreation and wanted to burn all gays at the stake, even if us and a few other species of ape are the only species who fuck more for social reasons than procreation to the point where we stopped having a heat/mating season once a year and became horny all year round), and that’s when all went downhill. And now people whose only sexuality is with themselves even call themselves asexual, even if, especially for women, it gives you the best, sometimes the only orgasms you can have. Which is, frankly, like a highly skilled brain surgeon calling herself severely motor-impaired and saying she’s retired anyway even if she’s in the operating room, saving someone’s life that very moment. But it’s by and far the best option, especially if you tend to get hysterically clingy and have bad abandonment experiences or just suck at having relationships. Think of it! None of this clinging business that’s always invariably associated with sexuality; none of this people-bonking-people that’s always also invariably associated with sexuality. No unwanted pregnacies, no STDs, going at your own pace, minimal risk of pain, no hurt feelings, no trying to please your partner to the point where it ruins your experience, et cetera, et cetera. 

And nothing, absolutely nothing compares to the state of samadhi, the state of hieros gamos, the full union reached during a Self-powered love-bout dedicated to the Divine. In my four decades of various spiritual practices, I’ve had the good fortune to experience a few types of extreme enlightenment experiences, and let me tell you, that much-vaunted, hard-to-reach state of complete emptiness that one gains with ardurous fasting and yoga? 

It’s boring as fuck. 

It’s dull, boring, lifeless. It’s nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the fully conscious, divine, uterine, kundalini-bursting-orgasm achieved through masturbative meditation: the explosion of LIFE, the radiant sparkling iridescent colourful bliss that is the root of creation itself, of spirit and matter, solve et coagula, Shiva/Shakti, as above, so below, yin/yang, absofuckinglutely transcendental and immanent and all, all, all.

It’s all in how you approach it. For some people, emptiness is their biggest kink, their biggest fetish. But if your body’s built for love, in the absolutely-embodied-and-also-transcendental sense, and you’re not harming a soul by doing it, fucking go for it. 

Note how I’m not telling the entire world that they should take up spiritual wanking (although I’d love that)? Because I know that there are as many paths as there are people, but for some reason, there’s a conspicuous amount of stomping over certain paths, and in the world’s usual misogynistic manner, practices by and for women that celebrate the female body are laughed at and attacked because vulvas are, apparently, that fucking terrifying. I could devote an entire rant to how we need to disassociate sex from abuse (because that’s the usual reason these practices are dismissed, and frankly, tantra, in and of itself full of deeply morally suspect scriptures, does attract the worst types of guys--the amount of so-called gurus and babas in that who treat women like shit and are only after siddhis and other ego-boosting things is too high), but that’s for a later date. Women and queers in particular know what it’s like to be on the receiving end, so thanks to us knowing what hurts in bed, we’re equipped with some tools there already to change things for the better. It’s a shitty way of learning empathy to have to have been bullied, but there you have it.

This is not to shame anyone into thinking they’re inadequate. (That’s the same tool that’s been used against women for millennia.) It’s the voice of all those who’ve been told to shut up by people who think they know better, and who have dictated the rules so far. But no matter how hard you try, the full experience of Divine bliss, the full existence of the Universe is not all male and/or asexual, and you need to shut up and listen for once. I, or Nature, doesn’t actually give a fuck about whether you have a womb or not, whether you have a sex drive or not, whether you have a dick or not. The point is to stop any one group, no matter how numerous and powerful, from trying to dictate the rules (because that causes suffering) and to understand that yours isn’t the whole story (because this knowledge, translated into awareness, helps banish suffering). 

It’s a million times easier to just ignore sexuality than to use it responsibly, especially if you haven’t been given decent tools for it, but that isn’t an excuse to keep on running away. Running away is exactly the thing that causes hallowed, celibacy-preaching yoga gurus to fall for pretty young students, and then be exposed as hypocrites. Solution: don’t be a hypocrite in the first place, but integrate the fuck-power, no matter how difficult it is, no matter if you have to pave the way there yourself. Particularly as this full awareness means you’re not paving the way there with other people’s bodies; once you have even a vague idea of what it feels like to your partner, compassion comes naturally. (And I mean real awareness. Not egotistically thinking you know everything. Real awareness means that even when you’ve been married to someone for thirty years, you still don’t know everything about them and still learn that someone anew every day.) Or, if you decide to pursue the conjugal-bliss-only-with-the-Divine route, I reassure you that if you’re still alive after having handled that, you’re already on the last leg of your journey.

And even if you chose celibacy still because sexuality just wasn’t your thing, the important bit is to stop telling those of us that use it that we’re doing it wrong when we’re hurting absolutely no one by it and, moreover, are 10000% goddamn motherfucking one with the Divine when we do it. (Or, rather, are explosively reminded of our oneness with it, just as much as someone else is, through using another, more “acceptable” method.) And it’s not for you to tell us that we aren’t really experiencing the Divine Union and we’re just deluding ourselves, any more than you can describe a country we live in but you’ve never been to.

This has been a kick into casting off your ignorance and going beyond that into the full experience of the fully intertwined, fully immanent Divine that is the World that is the Divine. Accept that you know fuck-all, accept that you must work seriously and sincerely to know the Other to know your Self and the Whole. I’m giving you my part of it, after being suffocated by your part of it over and over and over, to make even a small difference in the mix, to work towards a balanced understanding of the whole. Even if that balance seems a faraway utopia as long as women continue to oppress themselves and as long as men remain oblivious and as long as the ones who think they’re superior by stepping outside of the two remain smugly passive. 

Even if I just said I’ve experienced bliss beyond bliss, even that is an infinitesmally small part of the whole Bliss. And if I’ve had to go beyond so much shit to get even that, what about those people who’ve never even thought about these things? That’s why these things need to be thought about and talked about, rather than just slammed down as “wasteful” and “dirty” and “depraved” by That Big Guy Who Knows Better. 

Just because something’s covered in human, social, gendered, delusional, traditional, limited, unconscious crap, it doesn’t mean that it’s crap all the way down to the core. Why do we imagine that? We imagine that because it’s so much easier to be a rake or a prude; that handily takes away our responsibility. Yet science evolves, and so must humanity. In our thinking about sexuality, we’re still on the level of thinking the Earth is flat; hell, we haven’t even admitted we’re apes yet. Let alone that we’re intelligent, empathic creatures who are well-equipped for beautiful, blissful ecstasies, for love beyond what we can even imagine.